Business card templates are there for your convenience. Good ones allow you to enter in your basic information, upload a graphic or choose from their library of images, double check it and print it. However, photography businesses have greater demands than the average business card client. Here’s what to look for in a business card template when you want to create a business card for your photography business.
Ease of Use
All good business card templates are easy to use. You should be able to upload any image or graphic file with as few clicks of a mouse as possible. You should be able to rotate, trim and manipulate images easily within the template. Furthermore, saving the file and sending it to the printer should be straightforward, whether you’re sending it to your own printer or ordering 500 copies from a print shop.
Quality
The best photography business cards template will provide a quality product every time, given good inputs. If you’re uploading high resolution images, the template should maintain that resolution instead of compressing the file. It shouldn’t chop off the edges of the images or text. It should have accurate translation of colors from the file you’re looking at on your computer to the printer. Furthermore, the business card template should deliver colors that are standard for your industry, whether that is matte black, bright white or neon green.
Versatility
Photographers want to add decorative and creative flourishes to their business cards. They also have to work with a wider variety of materials than the average business card creator. For example, you may want to experiment with business cards with rounded edges, raised edges or a matte finish. The business card template should be able to translate your main design to every type of card you might run through the printer. It should be able to alter the font and the text size without ruining the other design elements. It should be able to handle a switch from yellow ink to gold embossing or another type of metallic finish.
Another issue is technical compatibility. Your business card template should work on Windows OS and Apple devices, so that you can edit and manipulate on whatever device you have on hand and with whatever software you prefer. The opposite scenario is a business card template that only works in a single brand of browser and a particular operating system.
Error Proofing
The best business card templates provide value by protecting you from mistakes. They flag misspellings and phone numbers that are a digit too short. They won’t let you put text or images in the danger zone on the edge of a card where they could be damaged by routine handling. The ideal templates warn you when text is too small to be unreadable or special characters aren’t going to translate properly. The best templates inform you when the text box overlaps with a graphic or another text box. However, not all templates will warn you if you’ve left the default place holder information in the address or phone number fields, so you still have to proofread your business card after you make it or update it.