How to Make Personal Business Cards

Business cards for the purpose of establishing or promoting a business is not a new concept. But personal business cards are a different kettle of fish. Recently, there has been an emergence of individuals making personal business cards for a variety of reasons, apart from just advertising their business. Students on the look out for jobs, people who want to change their professions, those having a side-business / planning to start one and individuals who are passionate about something and want to network with similar or like-minded people, are just some examples of the purpose and use of personal business cards. They are considered an important medium to communicate one's identity. Basically, these cards provide critical information about oneself, one's career and interests and one's contact information.

Very often you need to carry your resume comprising information about yourself, but it becomes cumbersome to carry loads of paper around. Here is where these cards comes in handy. Their main purpose is to communicate to a potential employer / contact, your name, telephone number, mailing address, website address, and of course your occupation, interests and activities. A good business card is one that along with all the above information, also reflects the personality and qualifications of a person.

Making Personal Business Card

If you go to a commercial printer, he / she will show you designs, from which you can choose the one you want but he will charge you a lot for the whole work, which may not fit into your budget. To avoid this, you can design your own business card with the help of certain software available on your personal computer.

One can use Microsoft Word, Adobe Photoshop or Desktop Publishing for creating such business cards. All these software provide a variety of colors, font styles, graphics, etc to make your card look great. To personalize your card more, along with your name and address, you can also add your photograph or your company's logo. These computer software give specific instructions that you have to follow. You can either make a simple card or use a variety of features available on the computer. One can also use background colors, borders, pictures, clip-art, etc. For example, if you are a wedding planner, you can choose a colorful background with the picture of a bride and bridegroom. This would make the receiver of the card understand your profession as soon as he / she sees the card.

People coming from creative fields, like, advertising or graphic designing can use certain innovative ideas to creatively design their cards. For instance, if one is in the field of animation, one can use some animated characters to make the business card look interesting. However, creativity need not be limited to the creative field, as people from other fields can also think out of the box. If one desires , one can also give extra information on the back side of the card. e.g. qualifications, aims, job expectations, etc.

The creating and designing process is followed by the printing process. If you have a color printer at your home or office, you need not go to a printer. Select the kind of paper or material you would like to have for your business card. There are a variety of them available in the market, which are made of different colors, quality, sizes, etc. But before you print on the main paper, print the business card on a simple one. This would give you an idea of how the card is going to look and will also help in making changes to card alignment, font style or size, colors, etc. After you have made the required changes, again take a printout on a rough paper and only when you are satisfied with the whole thing, then take the final printout.

Other than the computer, there are many websites that would help you in designing your personal business cards. You can make your card by selecting from the variety of options that the website offers and the company would send the printed copies back to you.

A good personal business card is the first step to attract potential employers / clients / contacts. So, put on your thinking cap and create something that is original and appealing.