Business Card Designer
Design and preview a simple business card layout with name, title, company and contact details in standard card ratio
Business Card Preview
Jane Smith
Marketing Director
Acme Corp
+44 7700 123456
jane@acme.com
www.acme.com
Designing a Business Card That Actually Gets Kept
Most business cards end up in a drawer or the bin within a week. The ones people keep have three things going for them: legible contact details at glance distance, a job title that explains what you actually do, and enough breathing room around the text that the card does not feel cluttered. This designer locks the layout to the standard 85mm x 55mm UK business card ratio so what you see on screen is what comes out of the printer.
The fields cover the six pieces of information someone realistically needs after meeting you at a networking event: name, role, company, phone, email and website. Skip the pager number, fax line and Twitter handle that nobody has used since 2014. If the card has six lines or fewer, the recipient can scan it in under two seconds and decide whether to keep it. Anything more and it becomes a wall of text.
Print, VistaPrint and Why Bleed Matters
If you are sending the JPG output to MOO, VistaPrint or a local print shop, ask them whether they want a bleed of 3mm added to the artwork. Bleed is the extra coloured area beyond the cut line that stops a thin white border appearing if the paper shifts by half a millimetre during cutting. The free JPG export here gives you a clean preview, but for production print runs of 100+ cards you usually want to send a press-ready PDF with crop marks. The premium PDF export adds the bleed and crop marks automatically.
Standard UK card stock comes in three weights: 350gsm (thin, cheap, fine for handouts), 400gsm (the bookable middle ground used by most online printers) and 600gsm (the proper expensive feeling card you get from solicitors and design agencies). VistaPrint's standard runs about £15 for 250 cards on 350gsm, climbing to £45 on 400gsm matte, and roughly £80 for the same quantity on 600gsm with a soft-touch finish.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the standard UK business card size?
85mm x 55mm. This is slightly smaller than a US card (which is 89mm x 51mm) so designs imported from American templates can come out subtly stretched or cropped. If you are printing in the UK, stick with the 85mm x 55mm ratio. The designer here is set to that ratio by default.
Can I use this for both personal freelance cards and limited company cards?
Yes. For freelancers operating as a sole trader, your trading name goes in the company field (or leave it blank). For a limited company, the registered company name should match exactly what is on Companies House, and many people add 'Ltd' to be explicit. If you are VAT-registered, you do not need to put the VAT number on the business card itself, only on invoices.
How many cards should I order for my first batch?
For most freelancers and small business owners, 100 to 250 is the right first order. You will hand out roughly 20 to 30 a year unless you actively network, and details (phone numbers, job titles, even web domains) tend to change within 18 months. Ordering 1,000 cards because the per-unit price drops sounds clever until you reprint them after your role changes and have 870 unusable cards in a box.
Should I include my home address?
No, especially if you trade from home. Companies House publishes your registered office address but you can use a service address (around £30 to £100 a year) to keep your home address private. On a business card, a city and country is usually enough. People who need a postal address for invoicing will email you and ask.