With this tutorial, you will be able to create your very own print ready business card in Photoshop.
Program: Photoshop CS6 or lower versions
Estimated Completion Time: 50-60 Minutes
The following assets were used in the creation of this tutorial.
First of all, we need to create a new document. The dimensions for the card depends upon where you are going to get it printed, as it may vary. However, standard card size is 89 x 51mm, so we’ll use it for this tutorial.
Before we move on, you should have an idea about what bleeds are. Bleeds are the parts of your design that will be cut out after print. If you won’t keep this fact in mind while designing your business card, you could get those unwanted white stripes at the sides of your card. However, if we extend our design by few millimeters, these cutting defects won’t make any difference. This is the main purpose of bleeds. The space you leave for bleeds also depends on your printer. Generally 3mm bleed size is considered adequate.
Real card size: 89 x 51mm
Bleed size: 3 mm
Size after adding bleeds: 89+ (3×2) × 51+ (3×2)
Document size: 95 × 57mm
More on, as we are going to make something for print, its Resolution should be 300dpi and Color Mode should be set to CMYK to get a sharp print out.
Hope you got the basic idea; now use the given settings to create a new document in Photoshop.
As you can see, we have created the document with bleed size included, so we need to define these bleed lines in order to focus on the real designing space. We’ll do it with the help of Guides. Go to View > New Guide. Then repeat with. After that, repeat twice withand.
Now something you should know about margins. These are defined just for safety purpose, to make sure that all the important content is placed at some distance from the edges. Usually 5mm margins are used. To define margins, go to View > New Guide. Then repeat with. After that, repeat twice withand.
Our basic layout for the business card is all done, now we’ll move ahead to design it. Set # f8951d as your foreground color and select the ‘Rectangle Tool’ to draw a vertical rectangle. Duplicate it by going to Layer > Duplicate layer and change the color of duplicated rectangle to # 000000. Drag this rectangle to the right. Now select both rectangle layers by pressing ‘Shift’ key and then Right click > Merge shapes. Duplicate the merged layer and again drag it to the right of original layer to get the sequence as shown below. Merge these layers and label it as 1st sequence.
Now keep on duplicating the sequence to align these rectangles all over the canvas. Merge all the layers forming this pattern and label it as 2nd sequence.
Next click on the 2nd sequence layer to make it active and go to Edit > Transform > Rotate. Enter the value of -45⁰ angle in the properties bar to get the diagonal pattern as shown below.
Duplicate this layer and drag it downward and to the right to get the final pattern as shown below. Merge both layers and label it 3rd sequence.
Now duplicate the 3rd sequence layer and select the ‘Polygonal lasso tool’ to select half of the pattern diagonally. Cut and paste it on a new layer.
Now position these upper and lower half layers the way you like to get a different style. Here we will just move both halves a little to make the 3rd sequence layer visible at the joining points of them as displayed below.
Next, make four rectangles in alternative orange (#f8941d) and gray (#8a8a8a) tone. Collect them in a group and label it as 4th sequence.
Change the Blending mode of gray rectangles to ‘Exclusion’ with 100% opacity and change the blending mode of orange rectangles ‘Multiply’ with 60% opacity.
Duplicate the 4th sequence and arrange it at some distance to the right. Merge both groups, duplicate it and go to Edit > Transform > Flip horizontal. Position it as below.
Set #000000 as your foreground color and select the ‘Rounded rectangle tool’ with 25px Radius to draw a rectangle in the center of the canvas.
Select the ‘Rectangular marquee tool’ to make selection for a thin stripe near the border of rounded rectangle and fill it with #ffffff color using ‘Paint bucket tool’ on a new layer. Duplicate and arrange it as shown below.
Duplicate each white stripe layer, give them pure black color and drag them one step outward.
Next, we’ll add title inside the rectangle. We are using ‘Eras Bold ITC’ font in #ffffff color here.
Double click on the text layer and apply the given settings for ‘Bevel and Emboss’.
Duplicate the text layer. Edit the top text layer to just type letter ‘i’, give it #949494 color and position it just above the ‘i’ of the main tile. Duplicate this new ‘i’ text layer and arrange it as shown below.
Enter the tag line in #949494 color.
Next, we’ll add our logo. Firstly, make a circle in #000000 color using ‘Ellipse tool’. Give it a stroke of 6px.
Now add text over the circle. We are using ‘Cubic’ font with pure white color here.
Now go to File > Save as and save your document as ‘Business Card Front Psd’.
Keep this front psd open as we’ll make changes in the same document for designing the back of our card. Create a new layer at top of rest of the layers; fill it with pure white color. Now duplicate the 3rd sequence layer with diagonal stripes and bring it at top of this white background, flip it horizontally and reduce its opacity to 4%.
Now merge 3rd and 4th pattern layers, which we have formed for the front of card, flip the merged layer horizontally and select a rectangular stripe on it using ‘Rectangular marquee tool’, copy and paste it at top of rest of the layers. Arrange it at the bottom. Select a thin stripe on this layer and paste it on a new layer above it. Arrange it at right border of the card. Now duplicate this stripe and position it at the left border as shown below.
Select another rectangular area on the merged pattern layer and paste it on a new layer at top.
Now go to Image > Adjustments > Hue/Saturation. Use the given values to desaturate it.
Next, we’ll add text over the top dark gray stripe, set #f8951d as your foreground color and type in your text.
Type the subtitle in #d2d3d3 color and ‘Eras Bold ITC’ font. Use the given values to add drop shadow.
Make a small rectangle below the subtitle in #232323 color and bring the logo layers at top of rest of the layers.
Now you can add further details in the free space. We are using ‘Berlin Sans FB’ font for this with pure black color. You can add bullets for the text using ‘Ellipse tool’.
Now delete all the unnecessary layers, which we’ve made for the front of card. After that, go to File > Save as and save it as ‘Business Card Back Psd’. However, for the printing purpose you can save the template as a TIFF file that would compress the file without much quality loss.
Here are different color variations of the business cards.
That’s all guys. Hope you enjoyed the tutorial and learned something useful. Do share your thoughts regarding it.