Small Business Resource Center Blog: Business Card Design Template in Xara Xtreme

This tutorial features illustrated tips and tricks for business card design using Xara Xtreme, and a link to download a predesigned template that I created to save you time and money. You may try a free 30-day trial of Xara Xtreme from their site to get started.

The first illustration (not actual size) shows the entire template with two landscape views of a standard (US) 3.5" x 2.0" business card for the front and back, and an alternate vertical portrait view which may be used for either the front or advertising on the card back.

The colored blocks in the upper right set a basic CMYK palette in Xara that I set up to help you get started. The 3 template views with guide lines show the "safe area" in green and the outer "bleed area" in yellow. Both areas may contain background color or photographs, but text must only be used inside the safe area otherwise it could be blurry when printed.

Next is a full size illustration of one landscape view of the business card template. The guide lines are shown in more detail. The artwork dimensions will actually be 3.625" x 2.125" because printers may want some extra bleed area for trimming each side of the card. The outer border is .187" wide on all 4 sides.

The next illustration shows the sequence of menu commands in Xara Xtreme for changing views from screen colors as normally shown on your illuminated computer monitor to simulated print colors as the design will actually appear once printed on card stock. From the menu select window/show print colors/simulate print colors.

The final illustration shows the menu sequence to change to printed view, and if you compare the shade of green here to the screen view above, you can see a significant difference. Keep in mind that printed colors will almost always appear slightly duller and darker than what you see on your monitor.