Well it's that time again and I need a new business card design. Any ideas as far as setup in photoshop project settings? I think I am going to use www.staples.com to order them and you can upload your own image. Was curious about was size I should start the project for designing...any suggestions on going about this? Thanks~!

-MD

Often you'll create something that's quite small and you'll need to have several copies of it as A/W. Setting up your A/W for optional spacing and printing is called TILING.

1. Create one master image in CMYK (Trim size-9cm x 5.5cm)
Use Pantone PMS Color percentages in your color picker.

2. Add 3mm Bleed on each side and top and bottom of trim.

3. Tile as many of the originals on a page suitable for printing
(Good alignment helps with the trimming of the cards)
Try A-4 for the first try.

4. Soft proof your sheet of Business Cards and check for typo's
and color correctness.

6. Print Cards on a heavy 250gsm Card Stock (Usually)

5. Save File (A-4 size) as your Master B/Card Sheet for when
need some more.

That's it! Good Luck MD

Wiz

Forgot to mention that you can do all this on your own Laser printer if you have one, save some $$$$ if you do that... I did, and used the savings to buy a good grade of card for future use, and a lot of beer to keep me happy

Wiz

you can get away with a whole lot more on glossy cards than you can on matt, if it's just a few details try this lot, free 250 card + posage
http://www.vistaprint.co.uk/vp/ns/studio3.aspx?pf_id=064&combo_id=4298&gallery_id=64&category_id=11&referer=http%3a%2f%2fwww.vistaprint.co.uk%2fvp%2fns%2fdefault.aspx%3fGP%3d6%252F23%252F2008%2b6%253A11%253A34%2bPM

Great Wiz, and thanks splodge, I needed some other opinions and ideas and you guys stepped up, I appreciate it!

I just did all this and used illustrator it has templates and the fonts are a lot cleaner on the smaller print out, and most printers use pdf files and cymk for color that way what you have on your screen is what they print out. If you are looking for ideas I googled bus/cards and just check out what others were doing.

If ya need any help drop me a pm and I will offer what I can.

Go to this site and download the psd file or indd file for your project they have templats all set up.


www.americasprinter.com

39.00 for 1,000 cards 4/4
PLus shipping. Printed in 1-2 days after delivering art

If you can go for a minimum paper weight of 300gsm the cards will feel a better quality. Mine are printed @400gsm and they have a good solid feel, but not so much that they don't bend.

I also always ask artwork with white space to be printed on 'bright white' stock...some of the papers you can get have a yellowy tinge.

I'd do a design in Illustrator (set up the doc size as the exact size of the actual card, then use guides to draw your bleed area), maybe incorporating artwork done in Photoshop (include bleed), then save as a PDF (print quality) with printer's marks and bleed (which will automatically incorporate your bleed set up off the artwork)...

Nowadays you don't have to tile artwork ready for printers so much as they can set it up while flight-checking, as long as they have print-ready artwork such as a pdf...

Hope that's somewhat useful!

The size of the card is relative. It depends on the information you need to put.
It may have 5.5 cm X 8.5 cm (standard size in Portugal) or may have 4cm x 8cm, 5cm x 8cm, 4,5cm x 9cm, etc...
I usually use a vector program (Illustrator / freehand) and 2 colors enough, but I'm suspicious because I like a clean design with no gradients and other kind of "sh*t"

And as Wiz said: 3mm bleed around the card if you'll use some backgroung. If you use a white background you don´t need it

I usually use PANTONES colors. I don´t know how you make in your countries, but using PANTONE colors (2 only colors) the print will be more cheaper if you'll print on a typography/graphic.

If you'll make it in Photoshop don´t forget use a 300 dpis resolution.

And yes, 300 gsm is the best paper weight for that kind of work

You can check here some great examples:
http://www.behance.net/Search?main-search=business%20card&realm=0&browse=appreciated&category=content

cheers and sorry the english

I've used these people a couple of times. Fantastic product, quick delivery, and cheap. They also have templates.

http://www.overnightprints.com/?ONPSESS=62c1c415d4b07d559f4236b8d5556d17

Yes, as N said above - good to use Pantone cols to start (esp if you have a set of reference swatches)...and then convert to CMYK for print etc. Then I might say to the printer... please would you match the red to Pantone 485 etc...it helps them out a bit too

8.5 x 5.5cm is also the UK standard...