Designing Business Cards Online: Five Elements You Ought to Know About

Just because you’re designing business cards online doesn’t mean that you’re bound to distribute subpar cards soon. Cutting down on your budget is not always followed by inferior quality. There are plenty of ways to make sure that your business cards come out looking great at less cost.

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There are five elements that would be helpful to know about and to use so you can increase the aesthetic value of your business card. These are:

1. Logo/graphics

For those trying to achieve a minimalist look, plain isn’t exactly synonymous to that. Make sure that when you design your business cards, add an image that’s pleasing to the eyes but not too busy that it would take away the attention from other details contained there.

Choose one that would go ‘with’ and not ‘against’ the whole concept that you’re building. If, for instance, you want a sleek modern look, stay away from graphics reminiscent of neoclassical and renaissance art. Opt for smooth lines and curves.

Logo, in particular, is important if you belong to an organization or company, or if you want a personal brand identity attached to your name --- quite a must-have for freelancers.

2. Typeface

Typeface helps set the image you want to create for your card and yourself. Probably the most common categories for typefaces are serif and sans serif. Serifs are those letters that have slight protrusions at the ends of the strokes. Famous examples are Times New Roman and Garamond. Sans serifs, on the other hand, are those without stroke extensions, its most popular example being the much celebrated Helvetica.

Sans serif typically goes with chic designs, while classic is well-represented by serifs. The texts you add to your design aren’t just for the contact details. They actually become integral design elements.

3. Ink

Plain black ink is classic but there are more options to explore, especially if you think that you need to add a little bit more lifer to your business cards. Printing in full-color has become common and very affordable these days, almost a standard in online printing.

And it’s not just in colors that you can play with the ink. You can also add effects like metallic and pearlized sheen, or modify the texture by requesting for embossing or thermography, both of which creates raised letters. Thermography, in particular, creates somewhat gelatinous raised letters that result from heating resin.

4. Shape

Rectangular cards have, for the longest time, been the standard shape. But there are people who experiment with the look by altering the shape of the card. It could be a simple case of adding rounded corners, or more complex ones like die-cutting the cards into irregular shapes. Either way, custom shapes create instant new looks. However, they do come with a price so you may want to be a little more conservative with the shape if you’re on a tight budget.

5. Orientation

This is a useful element that you can manipulate to add a little something to your business card. Orientation means the way your business card contents would be positioned. You can go for the conventional horizontal orientation, or be more different with a vertical layout direction. Orientation is easy and does not cost anything.

So you see, designing business cards online isn’t at all bad, especially if you know how to use these five elements to your advantage.