Business Card: Creating the Solution

Business Card: Creating the Solution

This whole project which has totally four phases is about communicating our future identity, our future job, and how branding will help us. We pretend that years later our class or grade are having a high-school reunion, and we are going to communicate our identity with a business card.

In the previous two phases, I have already done research, learnt the programs I will use, and planned a design. In this phase which is creating the solution, I will be creating my final product, but in this post, I will teach you how to make your business card based on mine by providing instructions.

Note:

1. Download Adobe Illustrator (CS6) first of all.
2. Please remember to always save your work.
3. Feel free to do it the way you like. This is just a reference and the contents are for my product.
4. If you have a question about the instructions that you have another way of doing it, you can do it your way. However, the instructions are what I recommend and that I think are the best and easiest ways.
5. I recommend you to revisit and review previous text or videos if you do not understand or forgot how to do something.
6. I recommend you to finish reading all the instructions before starting to work on it.
7. There will be keyboard shortcuts and stuffs which will be explained only once or twice. You will be expected to remember how to do so and what do you do it for.
8. My card is not standard size but is very close and should fit in business-card books and covers easily. Just note, if you are doing another size, you will have to count some grids yourself.

This is the final product for my project. I "would" be an industrial engineer in an electronics company named SLS (something like LG, Samsung, it's mentioned in the 1st phase - Inquiring and Analysing), and SLS value quality, simplicity, and innovativeness the most. This is the final product:



Before I started making my own business card, I was playing with Illustrator and found this tutorial for making a logo (it's a random logo):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vsBhoa4OidI
I am a beginner but at that time I knew very little and I was having a little hard time following. But it gave me a chance to explore other tools, and it gives you practice especially for the few tools it uses. If you are also a beginner, you will probably feel very satisfied too. And it only takes about an hour or so. It is a very good practice, and you will be good to go afterwards.

This website have many different tutorials, and will teach you step by step, but would take some time:
https://helpx.adobe.com/illustrator/tutorials.html

The Solution

We are going to make this product in this project:

1) Process Journal

1. Create a file

In this step, we are going to end up with a file like this.

After you open Adobe Illustrator CS6, go to the menu bar, click "File", and click "New...". Or, you can press ⌘N. Then, a pop-up window should pop up. On the top, give your project a title (this page will be the back side of your business card). Below, choose "profile" to be "print". For Number of Artboards, 1 should be enough. Below size, width should be 84.58 mm, and height 55.12 mm (use the two measurements if you follow me, but remember they are not business card standard size). Set the units to Milimeters. Then choose the horizontal rectangle for orientation. For bleed, go to the very right of the row and hit the chain-like button to make allsetting the same. Then, type 3.175 mm in one of the boxes in that row. Afterwards, Click arrow beside "advance" if it isn't pointing down. Then, colour mode would be CMYK because it is for printing and you want to print your card (unless you don't) (If you click RGB profile will no longer be "printing". The four colours of CMYK is blue, red, yellow, black. Below colour mode is raster effects. Choose at least High (300 ppi) to ensure quality. Set preview mode as default. There is no need to Align new objects to pixel grid (and I don't really know what it is).

When you are done you should see a white surface which is what the card would be, then outside, you should see a red stroke of a box which is your bleed.

Before we start, you should learn the very basics of moving around: ⌘+ is zoom in (no need to press shift, you can otherwise say it's ⌘=), ⌘- is zoom out, on a mac, scrolling is moving around, other wise press shift and drag.

2. Create the logo

In this step, we are going to create this logo.

First, go to your back page file. Then, go to "View" and hit "Show Grid". And it should show the grids.

Even though we set the unites to millimetres, you will probably find out the grids are still in inches (at least that is my case). That doesn't matter much. Now, the thing here is that we have to know where is the centre and where are the "middles". If you count across horizontally, there are what looks like 26.5 or 26.75 grids (on the white surface), let's say it's 26.6. Therefore, the centre 13.3. And from up to the bottom is 17.25 grids. So half would be about 8.6 grids. There are two ways you can knows the centre and middles:

This file is for the back side of the business card. Before we start drawing anything else, click "File" and click "Save a Copy..." in the column below. A pop-up window will pop up. This is going to be the front page, rename it according to yourself. I prefer to put it in templates. And choose format as "Adobe Illustrator (ai)". Click save, and it will bring you to another pop-up window. Do not change anything and just click "OK". Then you can ignore the new file until step 4.

When you start making the logo, use the pen tool to draw an arc facing down, and then next to it going up. Now, select width profile one. Then, deselect by clicking into an empty space with selection tool. Then, use pen tool to draw the left half of the smile, then the right half, then the a curve to the eye spot (going to the left). Then, draw a small curve to the right and then finish the eye with one more curve (do not completely close up the eye). Draw the nose with straight lines. To add colour, use the pencil tool to draw inside the strokes. For what you drew with the pencil tool, put fill for it but no stroke. And then ⌘x to cut it, then ⌘b to put it at the back. For clearer instructions, please watch:

*All strokes should be 1 pt.
*In this business-card back-design, it would be better for the logo the be round or square, a little flat or thin is okay, but too much will not fit this business-card back-design.

After some practice, you will hopefully make a good logo. Remember to choose all the parts of your logo (by pressing shift while choosing the parts), right click and group the parts to a whole. Do not worry about having to adjust things afterwards because you can ungroup it just the same way as you grouped it. Now, we are going to put the logo in the centre: ⌘C, then ⌘0, then ⌘V. All left is the adjust the size of the logo: Hold ⌥shift, use your curser to hold one of the corners of the blue rectangle and move your curser. By doing this you can adjust the size but keeping it the same ratio and ⌘C (copy),  maintaining where the centre of the logo is. Adjust until the logo is 6 grids tall - a little more than a third of the height of the card.

3. All of the Back Side - Logo, Lines and Background Colour

In this step, we are going to have our whole back side done.

As we have already created the logo at the back, we can just move on. If you left any useless lines and whatever, just delete it. However, do not delete the "Middle lines" and the "Outside box" we drew at the second step.

We are first going to put the background colour. First, draw a rectangle from one corner of the bleed to the other. ⌘x then ⌘b to make it go behind everything. Select it and on the left tool bar make it no stroke - click on the hollow square and click the button below with a red line. Then, click the solid square and click the button below with a gradient white and black. You have just applied gradient to the rectangle you drew. On the right, there is another bar, click the two arrows if they are not pointing right. 

Now you have the bar you see on the image (right), go to the gradient bar, and choose type: Radial. You should see a grey "colour scale" thing. There will be two boxes below. Click the one on the right which should be in black, something will pop up. Go to the top right and choose CMYK. Now adjust the colour with the percentages as shown in the image below (right).

Now adjust the gradient slider (the tilted square on top of the "colour scale) to the spot like in the image below.

Now you should have this:

Now we are going to add the white lines which are going to look like this:

And we will end up with this:

First of all, select your logo (which is hopefully grouped already) and move it outside of the bleed. Now, using the pen tool, draw the curve that goes across the middle horizontally, using what you already know about the pen tool and according to the image above. Make it so that it has stroke but no fill. Make the stoke white in colour. Then, choose the width profile one which have light ends for the lines. The lines should be 0.7 pt. Copy-paste the line/ curve you've just drawn. and put it above the original one, paste one more and put it above, and paste one more and put it above. (It doesn't have to be above, depends on the position of your original one). Draw the other "S", the big one using the lowest horizontal curve. Set it so the way you set the horizontal curve. And the copy-paste it above, then above, then above. Then draw the "L" curve on top of the highest horizontal curve. Then copy-paste it below, then below, then below.

* It doesn't actually matter how you copy paste it, or if you draw all three then copy-paste... As long as the correct lines connect. Also, refer to the image above to see how the curve connect to each other smoothly.

Last thing in this step is to delete the "middle lines".

NOW YOU SHOULD HAVE YOUR BACK SIDE DONE !!! :)

YOU BACK SIDE!

4. Front Side Part a) - Logo, Slogan, Background Colour

In this step we are going to end up with half of our business card done.

Open the file for the front of your business card. Then, press ⌘0 to make the page reset the size if you zoomed and it should centre the card. Once you did that, Copy-paste your logo from the back to the front and group it in the front. The logo should be in the centre. Double-check if the logo is grouped, if not, then do so.


Before we move the logo to the right spot, we are going to add the slogan. Use the type tool which is 3rd row, 2nd column, or just press "t" on your keyboard. Type inside the slogan, my slogan is "SLS Simply Live Smart". When you finish typing, highlight the text and make sure the following settings. At the left, set with black fill, but no stroke. On top, opacity should be 100%. For "Character", I used "Avenir" for the "font", "Light" for the "font style", and I typed in "8.23 pt" for "font size". Since I thought Avenir light looked a bit flat, I did some tracking so that the kerning (space between each letter) is closer, so it doesn't look as flat. To make them closer, press ⌥shift<. I pressed that 3 times, and for me that looked the best. Move the text box under the logo. Select the logo and the slogan. Then, go up to "Align" and choose the second one from the right, which should be "horizontal align centre" if you put your curser there long enough. After that, use the up and down arrow to adjust the distance between the logo and the slogan until it looks good. Select the logo and the text, and group them together.

*The following step is to make the logo together with the slogan, in the centre of exactly the left-half side of the card.
*As you grouped the logo and slogan together, I'll call it slogo now, just so the sentence are short enough.

Select the slogo press: ⌘C (copy), then ⌘X (cut), then ⌘0, then ⌘V (paste). Now the whole thing is in the centre. Make sure the slogo is selected. Then, hold ⌥shift, use your curser to hold one of the corners of the blue rectangle and move your curser. Adjust the size until: from the top of the eye to the lowest part (descender) of the "p", it takes up 7.25 grids. Now only use the left arrow key to move the slogo only to the left. Can you see that "middle line" we drew at the beginning? Move the slogo until (the space between the slogo's left edge and the card's left edge) = (the space between the slogo's right edge and the "middle line"). Now sorry for the complicating language, but I think you get it.

/\ Now you should have this

Now, we have to apply the background colour.
First, use the rectangle tool to draw a rectangle from one corner of the bleed to the opposite corner of the bleed. Set the rectangle to no stroke, but with a gradient colour-fill. Go to the gradient bar on the very right of the window, and choose type: Linear. You should see a grey "colour scale". There will be two boxes below. Click the one on the left and something will pop up. Go to the top right and choose CMYK. Now adjust the opacity and colour with the percentages as shown in the image below (left). Click the one on the right and something will pop up. Go to the top right and choose CMYK. Now adjust the opacity and colour with the percentages as shown in the image below (right).

The location of the this tilted rectangle should be 50%. The rectangle actually determines the point the colour changes.

The opacity of the blue-coloured box should be 60% and its location should be 96.8%.

The opacity of the orange-coloured box should be 40% and its location should be 18.18%.

5. Front Side Part b) - All Information and Text

This is our last step. And we are going to finish the front side. Meaning by then the whole business card will be finished.

For now, keep your grids on, and we are going to draw that rectangle box. Watch the video below for the measurements, and how to draw it:

Now, put your name inside the box. I capitalised my name, it's up to you if you do so. Set your text. For me it's: With black fill, no stroke, opacity 100%, Avenir, Medium, 15.5 pt. Make sure you leave some space to put you position next to it. Create a new text box. Positions will usually be two words, so type the first word, then press enter, then type the second word. Set the text, and adjust to the right side. I used: With black fill, no stroke, opacity 100%, Avenir, Heavy, 6.5 pt. Select the position text box and move it to the right of your name. Highlight your text in that box, and press ⌥shift< twice to change the kerning so it doesn't look too flat.

Create a new text box, and type in all the other info. The company full name, the address, your email, mobile, direct, fax, website... And I would recommend between each kind of information you press enter twice and leave a line there. The text I recommend: With black fill, no stroke, opacity 100%, Helvetica neue, light, 6.94 pt, and in "paragraph" select "align left". For those spaces between each type of text, make them 3.75 pt instead. now ⌥ shift< once. Now, you might notice on my business card I have like "email, mobile, direct". Do not type this in for your first text box.

Create a new text box, and type in the names for the information correspondingly (I think only the contact info needs it), and of course press give a new line each time. Then, highlight everything and set everything the same, except for the alignment. The alignment should now be left. Also ⌥shift< once if haven't. To align the name you basically put it on top of the information and align them, and then press the left arrow to move them to a spot you think looks good.

All you have to do now is take away the two "middle lines". But not the rectangle. Otherwise, when you print it you won't know where the card really ends at.

WE HAVE COMPLETED OUR BUSINESS CARD!

At last, click export in menu bar and export it as the format you want it to be in. I think it would be the most convenient to export it as common format such as jpg, png, tiff...

4) Changes

Although I made my choices clear in the developing ideas phase, I played with my other design idea for the back - the one with the lines. It was because the back looked very plain (especially when it's not on a paper which would add texture to it). They were originally black...

I didn't really mention that I was going to put colour in the front or the back, but then in the process of making I found that it was a little too blank, too empty. I decided then to make it all blue, but then the eyes of the logo was not visible, and then that whole layer of solid bright blue started to look fake, cheap, and cartoonish. (At this time I actually changed the text to white because it can be seen better). So I decided to change it to a lower opacity (and I also changed the font back to black because the background (and colour) was already too bright (and light). Then I thought maybe I could add some gradient to make it look more professional (which I learnt when I followed a video on making a random logo for practice). I used the linear gradient because the front side seemed more left one type of thing, right the other. I made the blue on the right and white on the left. But it looked very formal and like it was from a clinic, so I added orange which was another "recognised" colour of the company (because of the logo). I added it on the left and adjusted the gradient slider which looked great. I tried to flip the two colour and collected feedback saying the original one was better, which I agreed. I think it was because the left side already didn't have much, and if I added blue it looked cool and cold and very quite. And in a way the text is something that felt less lively than the smiling logo, so the colour fit better.

As I added colour to the front, I thought maybe I should add it at the back too. I used radial gradient this time. It is because the back has the focal point in the centre and the outside is more empty. At first, I used green which was another colour that I liked from my design. I put the green on the outside and white in the inside, because it looks like the logo is shining, and the outside need some colour to fill the emptiness. However, my chosen design part has already justified that green felt too jealousy and inexperience. And it didn't fit the feel, so I changed it to blue. It looked pretty good and not too repeated because there is orange in the front. The only thing was the colour was too solid so I decreased the opacity. Afterwards, I also changed the lines to white so they don't complicate with the logo's lines, and they catches less attention while they are still visible in that blue.

I also changed the font, observe the two cards below. The first was avenir which I said I would use. The second is Helvetica Neue which was the one I used. The first one looked too simple and perhaps many business card uses Helvetica Neue, the second one looks more like what a business card looks like. The second one also seems to looks less simple in a way it makes this kind of empty card less empty.