Business Card guide
What to put on a business card: front, back and examples
A business card needs your name, your job title or what you do, your company or brand, and one or two ways to reach you, usually a phone number and an email, plus your website. Put those on the front, and use the back for a QR code that saves your details to a phone. Business Card makes the card free with no account, as a digital card and as ten printable cards to a sheet.
The essentials
A business card has one job: to make it easy for someone you’ve just met to get back in touch, days or weeks later, when they’ve forgotten most of the conversation. Everything on it should help with that.
| Detail | Example | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Name | Maya Chen | The name people will search for: if everyone calls you Mo, consider using it |
| Job title or what you do | Mortgage adviser | Plain words beat clever ones; this is what jogs their memory |
| Company or brand | Harbour Finance | With your logo, if you have one |
| Phone | 07700 900456 | The number you actually answer |
| maya@harbourfinance.example | An address on your own domain looks more established than a free one | |
| Website | harbourfinance.example | Leave off “https://” and “www.”: they only take up space |
An address is worth adding only if people come to you: a shop, a salon, a clinic, an office with visitors. Social profiles earn a place when they’re part of how you work, such as LinkedIn for most professionals or Instagram for a florist or photographer.
Front and back
A card has two sides, and using both stops either from being crowded.
- Front: your name, role, company and contact details. This is the side people read.
- Back: a QR code that saves your contact details, your logo or brand colour, and perhaps a line about what you do or an offer.
Business Card prints exactly that way: the front carries your photo or initials, name, role and contact lines in your design; the back has your colour and the QR code on white, with a line saying what scanning it does. Ten cards fit a sheet, fronts on one page and backs on the next, lined up for printing on both sides. On A4 the cards are 85 × 55 mm; on US Letter they’re 3.5 × 2 in. For sizes in other countries, bleed and how big a QR code should be, see business card sizes.
Examples for different jobs
Tradesperson
Front: Dan Price · Electrician · Price Electrical · 07700 900789 · priceelectrical.example · Covering Bristol and Bath
Back: QR code · “Scan to save my number”
Freelance creative
Front: Sam Rivera · Illustrator and designer · sam@samrivera.example · samrivera.example · Instagram @samrivera
Back: QR code to the digital card with portfolio links
Salon or clinic
Front: Jo Adams · Senior stylist · Sunset Bay Salon · 0117 496 0789 · 12 Harbour Road
Back: QR code · “Scan to book your next appointment”
Job seeker or student
Front: Lea Novak · Data analyst · lea.novak@example.com · LinkedIn: leanovak
Back: QR code to the digital card with her CV and portfolio
Adding a QR code
A QR code turns a card into something people can act on immediately: they point their phone camera at it and save you to their contacts, instead of typing your number in later (or never). There are two kinds, and Business Card makes both:
- A link to your digital card, where people tap Save contact and see your photo, links and a Book a meeting button if you add one. It can hold as much as you like.
- A contact QR, which carries your details inside the code itself. Any phone camera reads it as Add contact, with no link and no internet, which is handy at events with poor signal.
Here’s how people save a contact from a QR code on iPhone and Android, and what a digital business card is if you’re weighing up paper against digital. You don’t have to choose: the printed card can point to the digital one.
What to leave off
- Every contact method you have. Two phone numbers, two emails and five social profiles make people unsure which to use.
- Small print. Anything under about 7 points is hard to read; if it doesn’t fit, it doesn’t belong.
- A fax number, unless your clients really use one.
- Your home address, unless you work from home and want visitors.
- Text near the edge. Keep everything inside the safe zone so trimming doesn’t cut it off.
- Details that change often, such as a promotion that ends next month. Put those on your digital card, which you can update.
Getting the words right
Write your role the way a customer would describe you. “Solutions architect” means something to other architects; “I build websites for restaurants” means something to a restaurant owner. If your official title doesn’t say what you do, a short line under it can.
Check every character before you print: a wrong digit in a phone number makes a box of cards useless. Ring the number and send an email to the address from another account. Then print a single sheet on plain paper, cut out one card, and look at it at arm’s length: can you read the name and phone number without squinting?
Questions
What information should be on a business card?
Your name, your job title or what you do, your company, a phone number, an email and a website. Add an address only if people visit you, and social profiles only if they’re part of how you work.
What goes on the back of a business card?
A QR code that saves your contact details, your logo or brand colour, and perhaps one line about what you do. Business Card prints your QR code on the back.
Should I put my photo on a business card?
It helps in jobs where people choose a person, such as estate agents, stylists, advisers and freelancers, because it reminds them who you were. Business Card can show your photo or your initials.
Can I make business cards for free?
Yes. Business Card is free with no account: one card with every field, three designs in any colour, the QR code and contact QR, and a printable sheet of ten cards, front and back.