I started a new job this month and my employer doesn’t seem to keen on making business cards for me. These are an indispensable tool for me as a freelance translator, so while I continue to push for one with the company logo, I think I’ll go ahead and print a small number on my own.
Does anyone have experience with this? I’m very competent in Photoshop and MS Word, so I was planning on using one of those programs to design it. But I don’t even know what the standard dimensions are, what kind of file a print shop would want, or even where to go to print them. Any suggestions?
There’s a lot of shops but I hear many are overpriced or will do a chabuduo job. Try and get a recommendation from someone you trust (I asked one of my coworkers at the translation agency).
I don’t know why these employers don’t want to give us a name card!
Honestly I’ve been here for nearly a year now, the least I can get is a picture on my swipe card and a name card to throw around.
Yes I’m fickle like that. I want name cards to be able to pass it around faster than lil wayne in a strip club.
I designed my own and got them printed in a printing store near my home, and it wasn’t expensive at all (costed approximately 200 NT$ for 200 cards, if my memory doesn’t fail). The usual size here in taiwan is 5’4cm x 9 cm, slimmer that the ones I used in Europe, so I had to stretch the design.
About MS Word: Don’t. Use Photoshop, Inkscape or Gimp.
I dig the prices, but there are just a few too many options up there. It’s stressing me out. I need to spend some time this weekend investigating all the types of paper and figuring out wether I want 5 cm or 5.4 cm. That will take a couple hours. I’m indecisive.
[quote=“Blaquesmith”]I designed my own and got them printed in a printing store near my home, and it wasn’t expensive at all (costed approximately 200 NT$ for 200 cards, if my memory doesn’t fail). The usual size here in taiwan is 5’4cm x 9 cm, slimmer that the ones I used in Europe, so I had to stretch the design.
About MS Word: Don’t. Use Photoshop, Inkscape or Gimp.[/quote]
Why not Word? There’s no problem if I export it as a PDF.
If you have to write a paper on something, or write a book, you could just use word. I myself use Libreoffice, but if you prefer word, it’s OK. After all, it’s a program designed for that.
Having a personal card made in Word is like trying to publish a serious newspaper all printed in Comic Sans. “But you can read the news too! and it looks cute!”. FUGLY.
When you have to create a design for a business card that looks cool, use a design program. If you want to use rasterized images, you can use photoshop (if you have a license), or just use Gimp. And before anyone begins a rant, I know Gimp is more limited than Photoshop, but to get an Adobe license you have to pay a certain amount of money (sometimes you even consider selling some redundant body parts to get it). Gimp is open-source and free, and you can use it for professional work.
The same goes for Inkscape. Inkscape is much closer to Illustrator or other commercial products, it’s also free, and can produce kickass vectorized designs for your personal or commercial use.
My point is: Photoshop, Gimp, Illustrator, Inkscape, all of those are programs made for design, and two of them are free, if you don’t have the licenses for the Adobe stuff. Use them.
I did my business cards using photoshop, illustrator, and indesign. You have to be careful with the print quality of text with photoshop (being pixel based). Collect business cards and decide what size you want yours to be. Mine is 89mm x53mm.
I got my first batch printed on a 180gsm, and I thought that was too thin. I’d go closer to a 200-250gsm (but it’s been a while since I’ve handled either).
Your mandarin will help you out a lot, go to print places and ask them what is the most common paper weight. If I recall you live extremely close to me, I can ask my work where they got mine done? They’ll have a corporate contract and I did get close to 200 made.
Otherwise submit to the printer in a pdf or tiff. If you’re willing to cut them yourself then print on a4 or a3. Format them on photoshop/illustrator/indesign. Do colour tests. If it is double sided make sure registration is right when they print.
I agree don’t use Word. You’ll be endlessly frustrated that you can’t move your image 2mm to the left like you want to.
I’ve never used Inkscape or Gimp but I’ll have to check them out.
@hs172, I recall one very drunken incident where I was handing out my business to every tom, dick, and harry I spoke to. Thankfully none of them called me at work…
FWIW I’ve always used PowerPoint to make namecards. Maybe my tastes are just simple. Photoshop, GIMP and (ack!) Inkscape? Overkill - most of the information on the name card is text after all. Well, it should be. Those programs are for manipulating graphics.
You can export to PDF, but I expect most print shops and print services will happily take PPT/PPTX. Mine does - ask for Yvonne at www.cellay.net - she focuses more on key accounts these days, but for name cards (especially if all she needs to do is print them), she can handle them. Tell her you saw it on Forumosa (that will make her smile)