Designing a business card

As a freelance writer I have had my own business card to hand out to people I interview and meet, but as my supply rang out a few weeks ago, I thought I would have a go at designing another, this time incorporating illustration. I chose the complimentary colours of yellow and purple and used the shape of a typewriter as my base. Writing is what I have been doing for 27 years and I can't push that aside, rather it is something I can celebrate alongside my work as an illustrator, so I can offer the whole package so to speak.

I looked up some websites that gave a few tips on business cards and the key points that came out were these:

• The size. The most common size is 84 mm x 55 mm but it does vary. I rang James & Owen in Stroud, a long serving very helpful stationers and they said they make 86 mm x 54 mm. I realised I needed to take account of a Bleed and that the image needed to be 300dpi for a high quality result.
• Colour mode. It’s a good idea to work in CMYK colour mode as opposed to RGB. CMYK stands for Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and Black (Black is known as Key and is used in colour printing. However I only have Photoshop Elements at the moment and it doesn't allow me to choose CMYK, so I will have to see how the colours come out.
• Prepare for the Bleed. (That is unless the design background colour is white.) This involves highlighting an area surrounding the document, usually 3 mm thick with the same colour as the background colour of your card design. This prevents any ugly border strips from turning up on the edge of the cards.
• Avoid using borders just in case they get cut unevenly.
• Use complimentary colours that are comfortable to the eye.
• Readable text. This needs to be at least 8pt and in bold.
• Include important information:
• Make sure you include all the information on the back of your card that you think the client would find useful.
• Your name – Put the name your contacts know you by.
• What you do – Remember to include what you do or what defines your job scope.
• Contact information – Phone number, e-mail, work address, social media profiles etc.
• QR Code – QR codes are a great way to visually present web addresses, phone numbers or vCards.

With this information I set to work.

I drew out my design and pinned it to some teabag paper and Calico

When I stitched it, I realised the back of the fabric was better so I went with this shape

I continued sewing until I had my boxes



I added the lettering on Photoshop as it proved too fiddly on the sewing machine

Then I added phone numbers and contact details

I sewed my name on the sewing machine and added it to the top box

 

 

I realised that the font wasn't big enough or bold enough, so I altered it to 20pt on Photoshop



 

 





 Having realised the font wasn't bold enough, I went back to the drawing board and added a button pencil and redid the colour.

 

 

These designs were my final versions. I went for white writing for my email address and website in the end as it stood out. On the back my original stitching design to put on my blog and the fact I offer a PR service to artists