If you think that designing a name card only involves choosing the right color, type of font, font size, and good graphics and image to go along with your design theme, then you’re only half correct. There are still other things that you still need to know and understand to make sure that what you are designing will come out impeccable upon printing. These tips are especially important if you are trying to do your design on your own with little to no knowledge about name card printing essentials.

1. Bleed Area

The bleed area is a blank area that is left around the edges of a name card. There should be no design at all, and this bleed area will get trimmed later on during the trimming process. With the bleed area, it will be much easier to create a uniformly sized name card batch. Your name card will look better as well, and you won’t have to worry about having the content of your name card cut. Before you spare the bleed area, however, you have to confirm with the printing service regarding the needed size of the bleed area.

2. Color Combination

To put it simply, in printing and designing, there are two types of color combinations that are most well known, which are the RGB and CMYK color combination. RGB uses red, green, and blue base colors to then get mixed so that new colors can be produced. CMYK, on the other hand, uses cyan, magenta, yellow, and black as base color. RGB colors tend to be brighter than CMYK, and it is used for designing software. However, printers use a combination of CMYK colors. If you design in RGB and print in CMYK, then the colors that come out most likely won’t be accurate. So make sure you design and print both in CMYK colors.

3. Image Resolution

Inserting graphics or illustrations in your name card can really make it look more interesting and help you leave a stronger impact upon the recipient of the card. However, you have to make sure that the images and graphics appear clear and sharp in high quality. The minimum resolution of the image that should be used for printing is 300 dpi to prevent stretching and pixelization of the image.

4. High Quality Printing

Definitely avoid trying to print your name card on your own, no matter how it is only a small and simple thing. It is always better to hand in the work of printing to a professional printing service that is experienced. You will be able to achieve high quality name cards this way, and you can order in a large quantity as well at a cheaper price usually.

5.PDF format Before you hand in your name card design, make sure that you save everything and submit the design in the PDF format. This is to ensure that there won’t be any changes or shifts as the file is opened in a different computer or different version of the software.

You may also like