Custom Business Cards

Finishes That Make Cards Memorable

Matt lamination gives a soft, modern feel and protects colours from rubbing. Soft-touch lamination adds a velvety surface that people tend to run a thumb across. Gloss lamination makes colours rich and bright. On uncoated cards, no lamination is used, so the texture of the paper comes through.

Foil stamping in gold, silver, copper or rose gold adds a metallic highlight to a logo or name. Spot gloss picks out a logo or pattern with a raised shine against matt. Embossing raises part of the design, while debossing presses it in. Rounded corners soften the look and stop corners dog-earing in a wallet, and painted edges add a colour stripe around a thick duplex card.

Choose one or two effects rather than all of them. A single foil logo on a soft-touch card often looks more refined than a card with every option applied. p2 If you want a raised logo, the embossed business cards page shows how deep the impression can go on each stock.

Designing a Card That Works

A standard UK card is 85 x 55 mm. Keep all text at least 4 mm inside the trimmed edge, and add 3 mm bleed if your design runs to the edge. Body text of 7–8 pt is the smallest most people can read comfortably; names and job titles look better at 9–11 pt.

Put only the essentials on the front: name, role, phone, email and web address. The back has room for a logo, a short line about what you do, a QR code or a list of services. Leave the back plain on uncoated cards if you plan to write appointment details on them.

If you need cards for several staff, we can set up one master design and change only names and details for each person.

Check contrast before you sign off. Pale grey text on white card or light text on kraft can look fine on screen but become hard to read in dim light. The proof is the moment to raise text weight or darken a colour.

Use a font size and style that matches the rest of your branding, so the card, the website and the shop sign all feel like the same business. p4 The same brand rules carry over to printed letterheads for correspondence, which many start-ups order at the same time.

Shapes and Sizes

Most cards are the standard 85 x 55 mm, which fits wallets and card holders. Square cards of 55 x 55 mm or 65 x 65 mm are less common and suit creative businesses. Mini cards of about 70 x 28 mm are handy as product tags or loyalty cards. Folded cards open out to 85 x 110 mm and give space for price lists or appointment grids.

Die-cut shapes, such as a leaf, a tooth or a house outline, are possible for brands that want something unusual. p1 A card that opens to a price list is covered on our folded business cards page.

Trades, Salons, Agents and Start-Ups

Start-ups and freelancers order their first set. Tradespeople, such as electricians, plumbers and decorators, order in volume for leaving on site. Hairdressers, beauty therapists and dentists use appointment cards. Estate agents, solicitors and consultants order cards for teams. Shops and online sellers use cards as order inserts, and event teams print them for exhibitions and conferences.

Restaurants and cafés print loyalty cards in the same size, with a grid of stamp boxes on the back. Coffee shops often find that a well-designed loyalty card is the most handled piece of branding they own. p1 Salons that book repeat appointments often add small table tent cards for the counter in the same print.

Order a Year's Worth, Not a Lifetime's

The commonest mistake with business cards is ordering 2,000 to get a better unit price and then changing a job title six months later. Work out how many you hand out in a typical month, multiply by twelve and round up a little; for most sole traders that is 250 to 500 cards. Smaller runs keep the details current and the drawer empty.

Before you send artwork, decide on the stock by touch if you can, because a 400 gsm silk card and a 700 gsm duplex feel nothing alike. Then supply the file at 85 x 55 mm with 3 mm bleed and text 4 mm inside the trim. The custom quote comes by email within one working day and the minimum is set per job, so a first run for a start-up is fine.

The free proof shows the card with trim and safe areas marked; after approval, printing takes 4 to 7 working days and the cards reach UK mainland addresses by free tracked delivery. If you want them presented rather than rubber-banded, our small printed boxes for business cards hold a stack of 100 in the same print.