ARTWORK FOR BUSINESS CARDS
Please read and follow these guidelines carefully so that your printing will print without any unexpected results

CARDZILLA PREFERED FILE TYPE

PDF format
94 x 59mm includes 2mm bleed
CMYK colour
300dpi resolution minimum
Fonts converted to outlines or flattened


ARTWORK GUIDELINES

FILE FORMAT
Cardzilla will accept a range of file formats for printing. These formats include PDF, JPG, TIF, BMP, PSD, EPS, AI. We also accept Word DOC files, Publisher PUB files, and Powerpoint PPT files.
You can Download these program templates for free

BUSINESS CARD ARTWORK SIZE

94mmx59mm (including 2mm bleed)
The finished size of your business cards will be 94mmx55mm after the 2mm bleed is trimmed off.

ARTWORK BLEEDS (IMPORTANT!)

Your artwork needs to be a certain size to print correctly. For business cards it is 94mmx59mm. Part of this size is what we call the “bleed” which will be trimmed off. The bleed area is 2mm on each side.
In addition to the bleed area outside the cut line, we strongly recommend making another internal margin as the cut line can vary in location.

1. The outside line here represents where the bleed area will be trimmed off. Do not put any important information in the bleed area, or near the bleed area as it may be trimmed off.

2. Important information can't be placed too close to the bleed area. We suggest leaving another 2mm internal margin.

3. The background colour or image must continue into the bleed area, otherwise an uneven white border may appear around the finished print.


RESOLUTION

Images such as photos in your artwork must have a minimum resolution of 300dpi (dots per inch). Images that have a lower resolution may print pixilated or fuzzy.

Images taken from the internet often have a resolution of only 72dpi and will very rarely print very well.


CORRECT COLOUR

Digital printing uses a CMYK colour format (Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and Black). The colours on your screen are RGB colours (Red, Green, Blue).

Some RGB colours that appear on your screen can not be printed in CMYK. You must be careful when selecting colours on your printing, as some colours will print “dull” when compared to your computer screen.


Programs such as Adobe Photoshop and Adobe Illustrator can convert all colours to CMYK. Programs such as Microsoft Word can not, so you must manually select colours which are not at risk.

FONTS

Fonts in your artwork need to be “converted to outlines” or “flattened” into a graphic. This will eliminate the chance of fonts not displaying correctly and not printing the way you intended.

If you are using a program such as Microsoft Word, it is difficult to convert your fonts to graphics. There are a couple of answers to this problem, both of which are still not immune to fonts problems. Firstly you may choose to select only common fonts such as “Arial” and “Times New Roman” .

Secondly you can "embed" fonts:

In Microsoft Word and Powerpoint, go to the menu “Tools > Options > Save tab” and select “Embed TrueTypeFonts”.

This option is available in Microsoft Publisher under the menu “Tools > Commercial Printing Tools > Fonts”.


CARDZILLA CAN DESIGN IT FOR YOU

Let our creative team of designers at CARDZILLA create your Business Card for as little as $55 (Single Sided) or $65 (Double Sided)