How to prepare artwork for Shaped Business Card Printing

April 23, 2020

The following how to guide for shaped busines cards can be applied to Adobe Illustrator, Adobe inDesign or Affinity Designer.

 

Step 1)
Create a new document with 2 artboards at size 85x55mm and place your printing design elements on artboard pages 1 and 2. Please add 3mm bleed to all sides exceeding the edges of the artboards. Now create a new layer and call it cutter guide.

 

Step 2)
Select a 1 point stroke, change the colour to 100% magenta and create the shape that you would like your cards cut and place it over artboard 1. For best results, keep the number of path points to a minimum and use curves rather than sharp diagonal corners whenever possible. Make sure this cutter guide is completely centred in relation to the artboard.

 

Step 3)
Copy and paste the above cutter guide to artboard 2, centre and mirror it. Make sure all print elements fit within this guide also. Once you are satisfied with your shaped business card cutter guide, please convert all fonts to outlines, save the AI file and zip archive it along with any linked images to upload via our website. 

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