Business Card Ideas

Fill or Frame a photo on a Business Card

It is not always easy to fit a photo to the shape of a business card. A business card shape is 2"x3.5". Most photos are not of the same shape as a business card.

To make a photo fill the business card shape, one needs to overlay the photo and extend it beyond the business card area. This means that a small portion of the photo edge which extends beyond the business card edge will be cut off when the business card is cut. This can be a problem if important portions of the photo extend to the edge of the photo. If this is the case, then I would recommend that the business card be filled with a frame color and the photo be placed inside the business card area using the business card to frame the photo. In this way not any of the photo becomes cropped.

Here is an example of a photo being used to fill a business card area, and another example of a photo being framed on a business card:

The photo fills the whole card area, so parts of photo edges become cropped:

The photo is placed inside the business card area, using the business card to frame the photo. Nothing on the photo is cropped:

We work these layout issues for you at Galleria Ventures with free professional layout services for each card design.

More information and examples are available at this link.

What does your business card say about you ?

Everything about your business card design has a relationship to what it says about you. The colors you used on the card, whether the layout is clean, whether you used a photo, the quality of the printing, all have an effect on the impression it leaves about you.

Here is a card that focuses on the relevant information of what this person does and how to contact him. It leaves an impression that the person is an experienced professional highly interested in their trade. The use of the photo shows more about that trade than what you could print on the small space of a business card.

When thinking about your business card design, try to focus on the relevant differentiating factor that your customers value in doing business with you. If you can use a photo to help make this come though, then use one.

Artist/Educator Business card

Fitting an Image on a Business Card

Many artists want to show their art on their business card. For example this artist has a nice photo file of her art that she wanted on the front of her card. Like many photo files we receive, it does not have the same ratioed shape as a business card. Please notice how the photo on the front of the following card is more square than the long shape of the overall business card.

Therefore, the only way to show the complete photo on the business card will be to shrink the photo so it fits inside the business card layout as show above.

Since the artist was also interested in seeing her photo image fill the front of the card, we enlarged the photo until it filled the card, and then we have to crop the parts of the photo that extend beyond the card edges. Here is what the card front looks like with the photo image cropped to fill the card and all text on the back of the card.

card front

card back

Business Cards for Irrigation Services

Here is an example of how a photo can be used to grab attention and give immediate recognition of what a business does. It is for an irrigation services business. The photo is of a sprinkler in action. You can almost feel the water on the photo front. Most all business can benefit from using photos on their business cards.

Card front: