Top 5 business card design and printing tips

Your business cards might be the first way that some customers come into contact with your business. The old adage may be cliched, but it’s true – first impressions count. These days, every business can order simple business cards online for the price of a drink in a bar. The good news is, many of them do exactly that. With a little extra effort, you can use your business card design to stand out from your competition.

Remember the basics

Design your card with a 3mm to 5mm “bleed” (the margin around the edge in which nothing will be printed). Don’t use a border on your design, because printing is not always 100% perfect, and borders can highlight inaccuracies in the cut of the cards. Also, for business card printing, 300dpi will ensure a good quality print.

Keep it simple

The purpose of your business card design is to facilitate a contact. Do not cover your card with text. Include the essentials – the who (your business name), what (what you do), where (your address, phone number and website), when (opening hours if applicable), and why (your unique value proposition) of your business. Nothing else.

Make it readable

Choose a font that’s both appropriate for your business and easy to read. Don’t make the font too small, either. Generally speaking, 8pt is the absolute minimum you’d want to use on a business card – smaller fonts might look readable on screen, but that may not translate well to print.

Use appropriate colour

Colourful cards may stand out, but don’t use colour for the sake of it. Make sure it’s appropriate to your business — for an investment banker, a subtle off-white colouring with a tasteful thickness to the lettering shows elegance and professionalism. However, for a cake decorator, it might display a lack of creativity. Always ensure the colours on the card match your official branding colours, too.

Experiment with shape

You can order die cast cards shaped in anyway you like. A company that produces herbs and spices might want a business card shaped like a spice bottle, for example. You can also use thicker card and indent shapes into it, giving the card texture. Premium business cards like these will increase cost – but that cost will buy you uniqueness and memorability.

Business card printing with BML Print

Based in Romsey. Hampshire BML Print are a digital printers who work nationwide, our printing services are complimented with wide-format, signage and many creative services. The highest standard of print is our number one priority. If we are not happy, then we don’t expect you to be.

BML Print is one of a handful of printers to achieve the standard required for orienteering maps as laid down by the British Orienteering Federation. We are also the preferred printer for the International Orienteering Federation, where we supply a variety of race products and competition maps for the UK & Europe markets.

Please contact us for more information on our printing services.