The small and home business owner operating on a shoestring budget has many resources available on the Internet to design and produce sharp-looking business cards by downloading free templates.
Your business card should be like a little piece of the sunset in your wallet. Since you only get so many literal sunsets, use the numerous online resources to make your business cards quickly and free of charge. A quick web search produced many sites with helpful instructions and the useful links you will need to manufacture your business cards. Businesscardland.com (http://www.businesscardland.com/home/) and Avery.com (http://avery.com/) are two sites that provide everything you need to produce your business card online at home. The instructions are simple enough for the novice user to follow. Of course, you will have important decisions to make regarding size, colors, designs, logos, and the information you want on your business card. An article at http://www.businessknowhow.com/marketing/bcunforg.htm provides some great insights into what makes business cards standout to add to your marketability. That article is geared toward enhancing your card with all the bells and whistles (which costs) but at this stage of your development it’s your personality that will win them over so don’t get too hung up here. Still, it’s a good idea to check it out and get ideas.
The free templates offered simplify this decision process in that there are fewer options available than what is offered by the sites and companies you would have to pay. The free templates have all you need though. The site I chose had straightforward instructions that didn’t have the annoying characteristic of not giving you the option to accomplish each individual task, one click at a time. I used a design from a gallery of templates offered by HP for Microsoft Office users at http://www.hp.com/sbso/productivity/office/buscards.html. On this site you are presented with several design options and color schemes along with the fields to enter your personal and business information. The template I chose showed up horizontally in a Word document, ten cards per page. It was a snap to add my information and insert a logo. Fields that you find unnecessary are easily deleted. If you have a picture of yourself on your computer, it’s painless to get it on your card by following a couple of easy steps. Incidentally, if you already have Microsoft Office, then http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/help/HA011912461033.aspx will show you how to make your cards in Word or Publisher. All the sites had links and suggestions as to what type of paper to print your cards on and where to buy it, either online or at your local Kinkos, for instance.
There is also the option of designing your business cards for free online using a printing company’s site and having them send you the finished product for only the cost of shipping. I will address that alternative in another Brighthub.com article. Broderbund, Serif, and Microsoft (to name a few) all have bundled desktop publishing software with the capability to design and print business related materials, including business cards, if you want to go that route and buy your own desktop publishing software. A package like that could be advantageous if you foresee several desktop publishing needs in your business’s future. Brighthub.com has a multitude of helpful reviews on that type of software. However, if free business cards that you can print at home are what you desire, the information and links contained in this article will put that little piece of the sunset in your hands quickly and easily.