Many of us just can’t design a good looking business card to save our lives and Photoshop is absolutely no help at all (As a commercial printer, I am lucky to have a graphic designer on staff who prefers Adobe Illustrator). New bootstrapped business owners with access to Microsoft Word can benefit from the buffet of business card templates available from Office.com and StockLayouts.com. Honestly, there are many templates I would never ever consider, but there are also some clean designs that have potential.
Clean Vertical Business Card
Print 10 business cards per page as you need them, but I suggest hiring a commercial printer since the print quality and card stock will be much higher in quality. This simple, clean, design available from Office.com will provide the professional look your business needs to attract customers. The cards are standard 3.5 x 2 inch size and work with Avery 5371, 5911, 8371, 8471, 8859, 28371, 28877, and 28878.
Office.com offers a ton of FREE business card layouts that may serve it’s purpose, but the pickings are slim since many designs seem better for people running side businesses who require less professional marketing needs.
Full Package Template
Often times, we need more than just business cards. This package trio created by StockLayouts.com includes a business card, stationery and envelope design perfect for business owners and consultants sending invoices and letters to clients. Stocklayouts.com sells individual, and professional, templates like this for $39 that can also be accessed through a membership package. Stocklayouts.com also offers a wide range of complimentary templates consisting of brochures, PowerPoint presentations, flyers, postcards and more.
Template for Photographers
Another “Office compatible” clean business card template from Stocklayouts.com, this design is suited for photographers and can be edited from most Microsoft Word versions. One huge advantage of using a layout from Stocklayouts.com over Office.com is the ability to readily provide a print-ready file for commercial printers.
Social Friendly Template
This download available from Stocklayout.com struck my interest since it is clean, colorful and offers a fun way to highlight methods of contact or social networking. A variety of additional engaging templates that match this theme are also available. I’m not intending to advertise Stocklayouts.com but the website truly is a wonderful place for avid Microsoft Word users.
Nursery Business Card Template
To be fair, I searched elsewhere for great Word templates for business cards. Avery, the office product giant, unfortunately offers a sad collection of templates from their website. However, this one business card template geared towards Nurseries and Daycares was cute and clean enough to include in our gallery. For the most part, I would stay away from Avery since generally the designs seem dated and clip-art-ish.
Conclusion
If you absolutely must utilize Microsoft Word, then Stocklayouts.com is probably your best bet for downloading a professional business card template. If “free” is key, then head on over to Office.com. Hands down, those are the two best destinations for Word-related downloads. Once your business matures and more funds are available, I recommend hiring a trained graphic designer to provide properly set up files utilizing pleasing design techniques.
Another recommendation worth considering is learning how to use Adobe Photoshop or Adobe illustrator which will open a whole new world of editable templates, my favorite place being GraphicRiver.net.
