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Part of Business card formats compared: stock, finish and the file that prints clean
7 things to weigh up on business card formats review
Business card formats review: seven checks for the card you already have, from sizes and bleed to the four-second test and what warrants a reprint.
This page is about reviewing a card that already exists. Most businesses are not designing their first one: they have a box of cards that were fine four years ago, a team whose cards no longer match, and a nagging sense that something on them is wrong.
Designing from scratch is covered in the business card formats overview. This business card formats review is the other half: a protocol for judging the card you already have, and a way of deciding what warrants a reprint.
The seven things to weigh up
- The four-second test.
- Reading conditions to test in.
- The information audit.
- Reviewing a set, not a card.
- Reviewing the mark and the name.
- Reprint, or live with it.
- The proof stage, if you do reprint.
Each of the seven is taken in turn below, in that order.
What to take away
- Review the card in the conditions it is actually read inat arm's length, badly lit, four seconds.
- Separate defects that make the card fail from preferences that make it different.
- Wrong information is a reprint. Dated styling usually is not.
The formats this covers
Most cards in the United States are the standard rectangular format: 3.5 x 2 in, which is 89 x 51 mm, printed landscape or portrait. The international equivalent is the credit-card size of 85.6 x 54 mm, the ID-1 shape defined by ISO/IEC 7810, and it is what most European printers quote. Four other paper formats turn up often:
- Squareusually 2 x 2 in, which suits a mark better than a long name.
- Foldedthe standard 3.5 x 2 in when closed, opening to 7 x 2 in, which gives four print surfaces.
- Rounded cornerthe standard rectangle with the corners cut to a radius, which survives pockets and wallets better than a square corner.
- Minia footprint smaller than the standard card, which saves stock and wallet space at the cost of room for type.
Plastic and metal cards use the standard footprint, printed or etched instead of inked, and they are far more expensive per card than paper.
Whatever the format, three measurements decide whether the print comes back right. Trim size is the finished card. Bleed is the extra 1/8 in of artwork beyond the trim on every edge, so that a cutting drift does not leave a white line. Safe area is the 1/8 in margin inside the trim where type and logos belong, so nothing important is clipped.
Two specifications are worth settling before you judge anything else. Stock is measured in points (pt), and a business card is normally 14 pt to 16 pt cardstock, often labeled 100 lb cover. Finish is what sits on top: matte, gloss, or soft-touch lamination, spot UV over a matte base, or uncoated stock you can write on.
Print method and color mode follow from the job. Short runs are usually printed digitally in CMYK, the four-color process. Long runs, and any color that has to be exact, are usually printed offset with Pantone spot colors, because some brand colors fall outside what CMYK can reproduce. Type size is the one specification printers will not agree on: ask yours for the smallest type size the chosen stock and press can hold. Minimum quantity, price and turnaround come from the printer and the format, so ask for a quote rather than assuming.
The four-second test
Hand the card to someone who does not know the business. Take it back after four seconds. Ask three questions.
Four-second test outcomes
Can they say who this is?
hierarchy works
mark competing with name
Who is this?
What do they do?
How would you contact them?
Three failures out of three means a redesign. One failure is usually a single fixable element.
Reading conditions to test in
| Condition | What it exposes | Common failure |
|---|---|---|
| Arm's length, seated | Overall hierarchy | The name is smaller than the decorative element |
| Dim light, angled | Contrast | Pale gray text vanishes |
| Held by someone over fifty | Minimum type size | The contact block is unreadable without glasses |
| Photocopied or scanned | Reliance on color | Two color-coded elements become identical |
| Beside a competitor's card | Distinctiveness | Yours is the third one in the stack with the same layout |
| In a wallet for a month | Stock and finish | Corners furred, ink rubbed off a coated surface |
Contrast is the row worth taking seriously. The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG 2) set a minimum contrast ratio of 4.5:1 for normal text and 3:1 for large text, and those figures were written for screens. A card is read in worse conditions than a screen, so treating 4.5:1 as a floor rather than a target is reasonable.
Reading conditions and failures
Condition
- Arm's length, seated
- Overall hierarchy
- Dim light, angled
- Contrast
- Held by someone over fifty
- Minimum type size
- Photocopied or scanned
- Reliance on color
- Beside a competitor's card
- Distinctiveness
- In a wallet for a month
- Stock and finish
What it exposes
- Arm's length, seated
- Name smaller than decoration
- Dim light, angled
- Pale gray text vanishes
- Held by someone over fifty
- Contact block unreadable
- Photocopied or scanned
- Color-coded elements identical
- Beside a competitor's card
- Same layout as stack
- In a wallet for a month
- Furred corners, rubbed ink
Common failure
- Arm's length, seated
- Dim light, angled
- Held by someone over fifty
- Photocopied or scanned
- Beside a competitor's card
- In a wallet for a month
The information audit
Go through every element and mark it as one of three things: still true, no longer true, or never used. Marking each element still true, no longer true, or never used mirrors the field by field skeleton in invoices and receipts.
Information audit checklist
- Every phone number dialled and answered
- Every email sent to and received at
- Web address typed exactly as printed
- Physical address checked against actual location
- Registration or license checked with issuing body
- Social or messaging handle checked as still yours
Anything in the second category is a reprint, immediately. A card carrying a dead number does active harm: it converts a warm contact into someone who believes you ignored them.
Anything in the third category is space you can recover. Most cards carry at least one route nobody has ever used.
Reviewing a set, not a card
Where several people carry cards, review them together on a table. Look for:
Set review checks
- Divergencetype sizes, logo versions, field orders
- Title inflation and title drift
- A missing house rule
- Write the standard as a short specification
- Zone order, three type sizes, mandatory fields
- Optional fields and who approves exceptions
Write the standard down once, as a short specification: zone order, three type sizes, the fields that are mandatory, the fields that are optional, and who approves an exception. The discipline is the same one that keeps a set of policy documents consistent, and it fails in the same way when nobody owns it.
Reviewing the mark and the name
Two checks that are outside design and easy to skip.
Name and mark checks
- Business name matches name you trade under
- Business name matches name on invoices
- Know what protection your mark has
- Do not imply protection you lack
- Claims vary by country
- Do not add a symbol just because it looks official
Check that the business name on the card matches the name you actually trade under and the one that appears on your invoices. A card saying one thing and an invoice saying another creates a small doubt at exactly the wrong moment.
If you use a symbol or name as a mark, know what protection you have and do not imply protection you lack. In the United States, federal registration runs through the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) under the Lanham Act, the Trademark Act of 1946, and applications are filed through the USPTO's Trademark Electronic Application System (TEAS). Marks that meet the requirements go on the Principal Register; marks that do not yet qualify can still be registered on the Supplemental Register. The rules differ by country.
The symbols follow from that. The ® symbol may be used only for a mark that is actually registered with the USPTO; an unregistered mark takes ™, or ℠ for a service. Putting a symbol on a card just because it looks official is a bad idea in every jurisdiction.
Reprint, or live with it
| Finding | Verdict |
|---|---|
| Any information that is wrong | Reprint now, and destroy the old stock |
| Contact route nobody answers | Reprint at the next order, remove the route today |
| Fails the "what do they do" question | Reprint, this is the defect that costs work |
| Text below the printer's minimum size | Reprint |
| Styling that looks a few years old | Usually live with it, and fix it at the next natural reorder |
| A set that has diverged | Write the standard first, then reprint the whole set at once |
| You simply prefer a different look | Not a defect. Note it and wait |
Reprinting a set piecemeal recreates the divergence you were fixing. Where the whole set is being replaced, do it in one order.
Reprint or live with it
Is any information wrong?
reprint now, destroy old stock
check contact routes
The proof stage, if you do reprint
Read every character aloud from the printed proof, with a second person following the source. Reading silently from a screen is how a transposed digit survives. Check the smallest text on the physical proof rather than at magnification, confirm nothing sits outside the safe area, and confirm the artwork runs all the way to the bleed on every edge. The full field skeletons are in business card formats template.
