How to design gardening business cards

Well-designed business cards are vital for any budding gardening service, whether you’re a solo gardener or own a landscape gardening company.

As part of our Adobe Creative Suite series of design tutorials, we’ll show you how to design a gardening business card using our free, easy-to-use template in Adobe Photoshop.

Follow the video and our step-by-step guide to make a striking business card and get your gardening services noticed.

Video Tutorial

Step-by-step breakdown

Now you’ve watched our video tutorial, you’re ready to get started on your own gardening business card. Read on for a detailed breakdown of each step…

Step One: Open the template

To get started, you’ll need to download and open our free business card template.

You’ll see the bleed, trim and safe areas marked out on the template, like this:

Next step, making guides. To do this drag from the rulers on each side of your document to the safe and bleed box lines. Then, add two additional lines on the central axis.

Top tip: If you’re using Photoshop CC, these lines will automatically snap to the centre of the document if pulled over it.

Step Two: Create a fill layer

A fill layer will give you more options for your design so you can add colour, levels or patterns. To create a fill layer in your template:

• Click Layer in the top-left corner
• Then click New Fill Layer
• Finally click Solid Colour

With this selected, change the colour using the Colour Picker.

Step Three: Add your images

With your fill layer selected, you can now add your images by dragging them directly into the document from your Finder (Mac) or Explorer (Windows).

When you drag an image into the template, you’ll have the option to resize before it is placed. You can change size, rotation and other qualities in Photoshop by using Free Transform. To do this, click Edit – Transform – Free Transform.

Top tip: In the video, a rectangle is drawn at the bottom to act as a solid for the grass to sit on. To do this, use the Rectangle Tool found in the Tool Bar.

Step Four: Join the images

Joining two images can make colour editing easier.

In the video, we connect the grass and rectangle layers by highlighting them all in the Layers Tab. Then, right click and select Convert to Smart Object to create one single layer.

Step Five: Change the colour

To change the overall colour of an image, right click on your connected layer and select Blending Options. This will open a basic pallet of image editing options.

Top tip: For more variety, click Color Overlay to bring up a gradient colour chart, then click on the specific shading to see the image change.

Step Six: Add text

You can type text on your template using the Text Tool located in the Tool Bar. To change the properties of your text, including font, size and spacing, click the Character Panel.

Step Seven: Save and create a new template

When the front of your business card is done, save it as both a PSD (Photoshop Document) and a PDF (Portable Data File). You need the PSD to make any changes, but the PDF will be the printed form you attach in the order.

Then, open the PSD file again as it’s time to create the back.

Top tip: It’s easier to create the back of your gardening business card from the existing template as you can quickly match the colours used on the front.

Step Eight: Duplicate your images

On the back of our example, we used a repeat pattern of several gardening tools. To duplicate your images, right click on its layer and select Duplicate. This will give you a choice of where you’d like it pasted.

We then rotate the images using Free Transform to create the pattern. You can duplicate numerous images at a time, as long as they are all selected.

Top tip: When you duplicate an image, each duplicate will appear as its own layer. Therefore, make sure you have the right size and colour before duplicating.

Step Nine: Delete the layer and save

When you have completed both sides of your gardening business card, you need to delete the template layer as this could affect your final product.

Finally, save the back your business card as a PSD and PDF.

Order your own business cards at Solopress. Choose the type of print, size and number of sets, then upload your artwork before checkout.