Business card maker or builder: which one you want
The maker is a form that gives you a card in minutes. The builder is the full tool. Here is which to open, and how to move between them.
Read it →A visiting card maker lays out the card that India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and the Gulf call a visiting card and the West calls a business card. It differs in three small ways: the size, the details people expect, and how much room the phone number gets.
The size is 90 by 54 mm in India
The two names describe the same object, and the size is the first of the three differences.
The standard visiting card in India is 90 by 54 mm. It is a few millimetres wider and a little shorter than the 85 by 55 mm card used across most of the world, which is also the normal size in the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and the rest of the Gulf. The United States and Canada use 3.5 by 2 inches, which is different again.
The visiting card maker picks the size that is normal where you are and lets you change it. If your cards are being printed in Mumbai and handed out in Dubai, print the local size of the place they will be handed out, not the place they are made.
Every size is drawn with 3 mm of bleed past the cut line and a 3 mm safe area inside it. Keep words and logos inside the safe area and nothing important is ever trimmed off.
What a visiting card carries that a business card often does not
Three habits are worth copying because they are what the person receiving the card expects.
A mobile number that is on WhatsApp. In South Asia and the Gulf, WhatsApp is the way business is done. Putting a number on the card is half of it; making that number a WhatsApp button on the digital card is the other half, because it opens a chat rather than a dialler.
The full company name and its form. People read the company before the person. If the company trades under a licence name, print it.
An address people can actually find. A landmark line does more than a postcode. Our address field carries a "how to find us" line for exactly the things a map never says.
Two languages on one card
Many visiting cards carry English on one face and Arabic, Hindi or Urdu on the other. The print designer has a Front and Back control, and a two sided card is printed from both faces, so this is the normal way to do it: keep the English face for the design and the second face for the other language plus a QR code.
The digital card is in English today, so the sensible arrangement is the one above: the paper carries the second language, the code carries the card.
Put a code on the back
A visiting card gets filed in a drawer. A code on the back gets scanned in the car park. Make it a tracked link rather than a bare address. If your number changes or you move company, you point the link somewhere new and the box of cards in your drawer keeps working.
The QR code business card page covers this in detail, and the free QR code generator will draw you one now.
The follow-up is where the deal is won
Here, a card handed over at a trade fair turns into business on WhatsApp, usually days later, and only if somebody remembers to write first. Let that somebody be you without the typing. The WhatsApp add-on sends automated follow-ups to the people who have your card: a thank-you when they save it, a follow-up a few days on, and a reminder before a meeting they booked. People who save your card can also get card notifications from you, which suit news such as a new branch or Eid hours. Pro is $0.99 a month.
Designs that suit the work
Fifteen designs exist, grouped as Photo, Plain, Dark, Bold and Business. A few honest notes on choosing for this market:
- Photo designs work for agents, brokers and anybody sold on trust. A face is remembered where a logo is not.
- Plain and Business designs suit trading, logistics and professional services, where a card that shouts reads as inexperience.
- Dark designs photograph badly under fluorescent office light and look excellent in a printed batch on soft touch paper. Choose knowingly.
A brand colour can be typed exactly; the card works out the readable version so white words on it stay readable. Cards set up for doctors and for advocates and lawyers show which sections each of those jobs leans on. Pick one of the fifteen and make your free card in the size your city expects.
Questions people ask
Is a visiting card different from a business card?
Only in name and, often, in size. India uses 90 by 54 mm, most of the world 85 by 55 mm, the United States 3.5 by 2 inches. The visiting card guide sets out the rest.
Can I print a visiting card at home?
Yes. The print at home sheet lays ten copies on one page with cutting guides, and A4 fits ten of every size. Use the heaviest paper your printer takes.
What should go on the back?
The second language if you use one, a QR code that opens your digital card, and nothing else. A back crowded with services is a back nobody reads.
Do I need a paid plan for the print files?
No. The PDF, the PNG, the SVG and the home sheet all download on the free plan, and any press in Karachi, Delhi or Sharjah can print from them.