There really aren't any secrets. The information is out there, scattered in hundreds of tiny pieces and mixed in with an equal amount of false claims and hype. If you want to take the time, you can figure it out yourself. But, don't bother. I'm going to distill my 20 years of experience in digital design-for-print and give it to you.

I designed the graphics for my first newspaper print ad in 1987 when I was in retail. I've watched the digital print business evolve from the very beginning. I've seen 4-color printing shift from a large-run and long lead time expensive specialty available only to large businesses, to a quick and affordable small business possibility.

I've examined the details of over a 150 on-line prints vendors, and I've sent print jobs to a dozen of them. After spending thousands of hours studying, researching and actually doing this myself, I am going to teach you how to do it too. . . for free.

My favorite on-line business card printer is VistaPrint.


List of recommended online printers

I've placed scores of print orders with VistaPrint over the last 5 years, and its service has always been excellent. Once, VistaPrint reprinted and shipped 10,000 cards at its own expense because of a fairly minor error. VistaPrint's customer service has always been fast and easy to contact, friendly, and responsive. VistaPrint offers the most design options, and it provides the most powerful easy to use online tools. As far as I am concerned, it is the only place to start.

The focus of this lens is the design tools and options provided by VistaPrint for creating business cards.

Business card design options

VistaPrint offers four levels of sophistication and customization for designing and printing business cards.

1. 250 free business cards.

This is not just a promotional or an introductory offer. It seems you can order 250 free business cards as often as you wish, but only once per order. The selection of stock graphics is very limited, and there is no flexibility of text layout or fonts. The reverse side of each business card from the free offer is inscribed with VistaPrint promotional information. Any deviation from these constraints involves an upgrade at a cost. Plus, as always, you pay shipping. If you are not in any big hurry, the shipping costs are reasonable at about $6 for delivery to a U.S. address. However, if you want your free business cards in less than three weeks, you pay a premium for shipping.

2. Premium business cards based on stock graphics.

VistaPrint offers several thousand (I haven't counted them) stock business card graphic backgrounds organized by industry and by style. These graphic designs are all available when ordering VistaPrint's Premium Business Card option. More importantly, the Premium Business Card option makes VistaPrint's advanced online layout and text editor available. With this tool you can position elements as you wish, rotate elements, change typeface, and adjust type size. It is this advanced editor that makes custom business card design possible without a heavy investment in specialized software.

3. Premium business cards based on uploaded graphics.

For a small additional one-time charge per upload, you can use custom images and graphics in your business card designs. This is what VistaPrint says about uploaded images today, "You are free to upload your image and see how it looks before ordering. If you place an order that includes an uploaded image, there is a fee of $2.49. This is a one-time fee per image, meaning that you can continue to use that particular image in other products or successive orders at no further cost. There is no limit on the number of images you can upload and store."

4. Business cards with 'foil' accents.

VistaPrint offers additional spot overprinting with a special optical varnish that takes on the underlying color and reflects light when viewed at an angle, as if it were an embossed foil. It isn't really a true foil, but it does add a 'flash' to a business card design. VistaPrint offers this option with many of its stock backgrounds for an additional cost, and if 'foil' is available for an individual stock design it is offered as an option in the checkout process. Designing your own 'foil' accent cannot be accomplished using the on-line editor tools.

Pricing

VistaPrint pricing is very competitive. It has a standing "lowest price guarantee" policy, which I have never tested. VistaPrint offers a Dealer Program for a one-time fee (currently $50) that gives significant discounts from standard pricing, and it frequently offers special deals and other discounts.

VistaPrint allows you to experiment and practice business card layout and design, and to save your work at any stage of the process. You can also upload your own images without obligation. You only pay the minimal upload fee the first time you order a design that used the image, and you only pay for it once. You can then re-use the graphic in other projects for no additional fee.

VistaPrint advanced editor menu



The playing field

The design area of VistaPrint's advanced business card editor is the same shape and proportion of an actual business card, except it's about 4 times bigger in appearance on-screen. The inner dotted line shows the boundary of the inner "safe area." The outer solid line shows the extent of the "full bleed area."



"Full bleed" is a printing term used when you want color, artwork, or a photo to extend all the way to the edge of the finished business card. Multiple copies of a business card are printed on a single piece of card stock, and the individual business cards are cut apart after printing. Since high-speed cutting operations are not precise, the individual business card is designed and printed slightly larger than the finished product.

Your business card design will be cut somewhere outside the inner dotted "safe area" line, between it and the outer "full bleed" line. Accordingly, all text and important images that must be on the completed business card has to be placed within the "safe area."

Clear the decks!

Since VistaPrint is so doggone helpful, its web site makes it a bit difficult to get to a totally blank design screen. There are several different paths to the advanced business card editor, but no matter which way I get to it there is always something that VistaPrint considers useful already in place.

What I did was to delete all pre-existing content from the advanced business card editor, and then save the blank template to my account with the name "Blank white - bizcard." This way I can go to my account portfolio and select this blank template for editing whenever I start a new project. It avoids the mess of cleaning a blank workspace every time.

I'll give you step-by-step directions how to do this for yourself in the next section.

This is what we're going to do:

1. First, we will open VistaPrint in a new browser window.
2. In the new browser window we will navigate to the advanced business card editor.
3. Next, we will delete all the text and graphics from the business card editor, and;
4. Finally, we will save the blank business card template to our account portfolio.

Phase one

Open a new VistaPrint window by clicking here, please.

Phase two

Phase two - step 1

Along the left hand side of the VistaPrint web site you will see a general product category menu, as shown below. When you hover your mouse cursor over the "Business Card" menu item, a pop-up window will give you several options, including a link to "Premium Business Cards." Please click on the "Premium Business Cards" link, now.



Phase two - step 2

If all went well, you should have been served up a page with a selection menu that looks like the illustration below. Under "Choose how to design it" select the link to "Browse our designs."



Phase two - step 3

Finally, we arrive at a page showing the "Most Popular" business card layouts. No doubt the layouts shown on this page change from time to time, as popularity waxes and wanes, and you may need to close an annoying javascript pop-up search box that sometimes appears in the center of the page.

Today, on May 1st, the business card design shown below is the number one most popular layout offered by VistaPrint, so it is the one I selected. I didn't select it because it is popular, I selected it because it has a white background.



If you see this particular layout, go ahead and select it now so that we can move this project along. If this design is not showing on the first page on whatever future date it will be when you are playing this game, feel free to pick ANY other design, just so long as it has a white background.

It is important to select a design with a white background. It makes a difference, but it is too complicated and too much of a distraction to explain why it makes a difference.

Phase three

Voila! We have finally reached the Vista Print advanced business card editor! There are only a few more plays remaining in this game.

Phase three - step 1



At the bottom left corner of the business card editor is a blue button that says, "Remove Sample Text." Click it. All text in the editor should disappear.

Phase three - step 2



When you move your mouse cursor over an image in the business card editor and right-click your mouse, a pop-up window will appear with the bottom-most option being "Delete."

You know what to do. Delete.

Now the advanced business card editor should present a totally blank slate, and a clean working surface for future practice.

Phase four



On the upper left corner of the business card editor's top menu bar are two tiny diskette icons. The one on the far left, closest to the left edge is "Save." The second one next to it is "Save As."

Click on the second, "Save As", icon and a pop-up box will appear that will allow you to enter a file name. I named mine "Blank white - bizcard." You can name yours whatever you want to.

VistaPrint business card editor tutorials:

A 14 click walk-through.

1. Add a text box
2. Resize a text box
3. Moving a text box
4. Text field options window
5. Enter your text
6. Open the text color selector
7. Basic text color options
8. Font size selector
9. Font typeface selector
10. Closing the text field box
11. Resizing the text box to the right
12. Centering the text box
13. Centering text inside the text box