Business Card Design Tips: What to Include and How to Lay It Out

A good business card shows who you are, what you do and how to reach you, and nothing else. Put your name or logo and what you do on the front, your phone number, email and website on the back, and keep all of it inside the 75 x 45mm safe area of an 85 x 55mm card. Set the file up at 91 x 61mm with 3mm bleed, use text no smaller than 6pt, and start from our free template with the lines already drawn.

What to put on a business card

If you belong to a trade body or a registration scheme, check that scheme's rules on using its logo or your number before you add it.

Front and back

Our business cards are printed single or double-sided. Double-sided is the default, and on a small card it helps.

• Front: logo, name, job title or trade. Plenty of space around it, so it is clear at a glance.
• Back: phone, email, website, address or area covered, and a QR code if you use one.

A single-sided card works if you only need a name, a job title and a number. Either way, the phone number must be readable in a second.

Work inside the safe area

A UK business card is 85 x 55mm. Cards are printed many to a sheet and cut, and the cut can move by a small amount, so three lines matter:

Our business card size guide gives these sizes in centimetres, inches and pixels. Our free business card template has the bleed edge in red, the trim line in black and the safe area as a blue dashed line, with a front and a back page.

Text, colour and lines

• Text size: our minimum is 6pt. We suggest 8pt or more for phone numbers and email addresses, because people need to read them accurately.
• Black text: set small text in 100% black only. Keep rich black (C63 M52 Y51 K100) for large dark backgrounds.
• Contrast: avoid pale grey text and very thin typefaces, which can break up at small sizes.
• Lines: at least 0.25pt thick.
• Colour: set the file up in CMYK and use the CMYK values from your brand guidelines. We print with the four process inks, not Pantone spot inks, so we cannot promise an exact Pantone match. Our CMYK vs RGB guide explains why screen colours shift.

Borders and edges

Avoid a thin frame round the edge of the card. A small movement in the cut makes a narrow border look wider on one side than the other. On anything smaller than A4, make any border at least 20mm wide, which on a business card means leaving it out, or let the background run into the bleed instead.

QR codes on business cards

A QR code prints like the rest of your artwork. Make it large enough to scan easily, print it dark on a plain light background, leave a clear margin around it and keep it inside the safe area. Add it as a vector or high-resolution image, scan the finished file with a phone before you upload, and check the address it opens is the one you want.

Choosing a finish

Our standard business card is 400gsm silk card, with three finishes:

The finish goes on after printing, so the artwork set-up is the same for all three. You can also choose a gloss laminate or gloss varnish, other weights of silk or gloss card, speciality cards such as kraft, recycled, pearl or metallic, and extras such as foil, raised spot UV and round corners. Foil and raised spot UV cover only parts of the design, so they need more than a standard file; contact us if you are unsure how to set them up. Our guides to soft-touch lamination and matt vs gloss lamination compare them.

Cards for a team

Prices and minimum quantities are per design, and every name is a separate design, so cards for three people are three designs of at least 100 each. Build one master layout and change only the name, job title, phone number and email for each person, so every card matches. Our pages for trade business cards and estate agent business cards show how that works in practice, and our business cards for tradesmen guide covers trade cards in detail.

Before you approve the proof

When you upload, our free automatic check looks at size, bleed, colour mode, resolution and fonts, and you see the card on screen with the trim, bleed and safe area marked before you pay. The check does not read your words. Read every digit of the phone number, every letter of the email and the web address, and check the spelling of your name and job title. Once you approve, we print exactly what the proof shows. Our proofs and file checks page explains what is checked, and our artwork guidelines list every setting.

Questions

What should be on a business card? Your name, job title or trade, business name or logo, phone number, email address and website. Add the area you cover or your address if it helps customers, and a QR code if you have a useful page to link to. Leave out anything that changes often.

What is the layout of a business card? Usually the logo, name and job title on the front, and contact details on the back. Everything sits inside a 75 x 45mm safe area on an 85 x 55mm card, with backgrounds running into 3mm of bleed, so the artwork file is 91 x 61mm.

What font size should I use on a business card? At least 6pt, which is our minimum. We suggest 8pt or more for phone numbers and email addresses, set in 100% black or a strong colour on a plain background.

Should a business card be double-sided? Usually. The back gives room for contact details, a QR code or a list of services, so the front can stay simple. A single-sided card works if you only need a name, a job title and a number.

Do you have a business card template? Yes. Our free template is 91 x 61mm, with the trim line, the 3mm bleed and the 5mm safe area marked, and a front and back page. Download it as a PDF or SVG, design over it, then delete or hide the guide layer before you export.

Can I write on your business cards? Our 300gsm and 340gsm uncoated cards are the best choice if you write appointment times or notes on them, and 400gsm silk with no finish also takes a pen. A matt or soft-touch laminated surface is harder to write on.