How to Design a Business Card with Canva

Picture courtesy of www.canva.com.

Entrepreneurs typically perform many roles including being the accountant, marketer, salesperson, and designer. The good news is this Small Business Sunday is here to help make these roles as easy as possible! Follow this easy guide to create your own custom business card - no design experience required!

Canva is a design application available through a web browser, or through a mobile app. I've used Canva to create business cards, impressive slide shows, logos, yard signs, flyers, posters, and even a policy brief paper for an American Constitutional Law class. For the small business owner, a business card is one of the first marketing items that should be checked off the list.

Step 1: Create a Canva Account

Visit www.canva.com and click the purple button titled "Sign up for Free." Here you'll be directed to sign up through an existing Google or Facebook account. Alternatively, sign up through an email. Once an email or account is entered, enter your name and create a password if asked to do so. From my personal experience, it will require you to verify your account with a code sent to your email.

After account creation, Canva will ask what you are planning to use the application for. Click the "Small Business" box so the website will be oriented to your needs. You can then add co-workers to your designs if needed. Canva will attempt to upsell you to Canva Pro which costs $119.99 - $149.90 per year. For basic (yet sleek!) functionality, a free account is all that you need to start.

Step 2: Design the Card

Under the "What will you design today?" title, a search bar is found where you should search for "business card." Keep two things in mind when searching for a template:

1. The designs shown with pictures, logos, text, colors etc. can all be edited once you pick a design. So, if you find a design you love, but do not like the colors...it can be customized to your taste!

2. Avoid any design with a "$" or a "👑" located in the bottom right. The dollar sign indicates that payment is required to use this template, while a crown symbol indicates that the design is only available to Canva Pro members.

For this blog, I have chosen to use the "Cupcake Drawing Bakery Business Card" as an example.

Canva's design editor.

Once you have chosen a design, click "Customize this template." Before you make any changes, you should have a good idea of what belongs on a business card and best practices when designing. While this topic could be a separate blog post, I would encourage you to read Create An Effective Business Card: Do’s & Don’ts from PrimoPrint.

Canva will then open the editor page and demonstrate a few helpful tips. Within the editor, you can add your logo, change text, fonts, colors, symbols, and much more. Canva's interface is very user friendly (even to those who are not computer experts!) so I will not walk you through each of Canva's functions. If you are having issues, this video tutorial from Whiskey & Whit walks you through it.

Once you have made your changes, move on to Step 3.

Step 3: Ordering the Card

After customizing the perfect business card, Canva provides printing services directly within the application. Should you choose this route, click "Print Business Cards" in the top right of the browser. Select your material, and amount needed. Then proceed to check your work and move to the checkout process.

Pricing within Canva differs with per card pricing of $0.09 - $0.30 depending on order quantity. However, if you would like to export your design and print with a local printing service or through another application such as vistaprint.com or primoprint.com, you may find better pricing. To do this, simply click "Share" at the top right of the window and click "Download." Your design will then be available on your computer where you can take it or upload it to another service.

That's all there is to it! You've just created your first business card, and you didn't even have to pay for a designer.

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Note: logos, names, and picture content featured in this post are property of their respective company and are hyperlinked to the proper ownership.