How to Create a Cardboard-Textured Business Card in Adobe Photoshop

Business cards are valuable tools in today’s society. But how can you make business cards stand out from the rest of the crowd? An easy idea is to print your business card on different materials, such as cardboard, leather, or even metal.

Although this is a simple idea, some people may not have the money to print their cards on expensive materials. In this case, using a faux-textured background design can be a low-cost solution to expensive, heavy-textured cardstock.

To save even more money, all business owners can make their own business cards using this tutorial. This tutorial demonstrates how to create a business card in Photoshop that looks like an expensive textured paper business card. This way, all that is needed is regular white cardstock.

This tutorial will also show you how to produce a business card that appears to have been pressed onto textured cardboard.

Step 1
Launch Adobe Photoshop on your computer and start a new document with the settings set to a width of 14 inches, a height of 8 inches, and a resolution of 72. It’s best to design on a larger scale so that it’s clearer when finished and ready to be printed.

Step 2
Select everything and fill the entire area with the color #AAA494 or a shade of gray close to that color. After doing so, keep everything selected and apply a cloud filter to the area. You can do this by going to the dropdown menu, Filter > Render > Clouds. Make sure there is enough contrast or adjust the brightness/contrast until it looks natural enough.

Step 3
Apply some texture by choosing Filter > Noise > Add Noise with the setting of 4 / Gaussian / Monochrome.

Step 4
Go to Filter > Blur > Motion Blur, with the Angle set to 90 degrees and the Distance set to 8. Applying this texture will give your business card a recycled cardboard look that appears to have paper fibers in it. The paper fibers are normally aligned horizontally or vertically.

step 5
Add a color overlay layer style to your contact card template. Go to Layer > Layer Style > Color Overlay to do this. Once the settings box appears, set Color to #7b6d52, which is a brown paper color. Change the blend mode to Color and the Opacity to 100%.

step 6
Next, apply a Pattern Overlay layer style to the business card template. To do this, go to Layer > Layer Style > Pattern Overlay. Once the settings box opens, change the Blending Mode to Soft Light and make the Opacity 75 percent.

Choose from fibers 1 and 2 of the grayscale paper patterns, this will add to the textured look of the business card. Set the Scale to 100 and check the ‘Link to layer’ box. Adjust the opacity to be as natural as possible; around 85 percent opacity is good.

Step 7
To make the card look more three-dimensional, you’ll apply a Bevel and Emboss layer. Go to Layer > Layer Style > Bevel & Emboss. Once the settings box opens, set the bezel to inner bezel; set technique to Smooth; set the depth to 100%; set Direction to Top; set Size to 1; and Smooth setting at 0%. For shading options, set Angle to 120 degrees and check Use Global Light; set Altitude to 30 degrees and use Brightness Contour; set Highlight Mode to Screen and set Opacity to 75% with Shadow set to Multiply mode. The opacity should be set to 30%.

step 8
Next is to create a new layer and add stains to your business card. The speckles will make the design look more natural. To do this, click Layer > Layer Style > Pattern Overlay. When the settings box opens, set the Style to a Blending Mode of Normal and set its Opacity to 100. Choose the Charcoal Flecks pattern from the grayscale Paper patterns.

step 9
This next step will help show the effects of the charcoal. To do so, create another layer and fill the layer with black. Separate the layer style from the layer by right-clicking the layer style icon and choosing Create Layers. Once the layer’s layer style has been adapted to a separate layer, you can now delete the black-filled layer, leaving you to work with the newly created layer. This will fill the layer with the Charcoal Flecks pattern.

step 10
Now we want to expand that layer so the speckles look bigger. You can do this by pressing Ctrl+T and dragging/expanding the layer until you get more visible spots. Adjust layer levels to increase contrast. To do this, drag the middle slider to the right and the right slider to the left until the background is completely white and the spots really stand out. Next, change the layer’s Fill Opacity to around 60% and change the layer’s Blend Mode to Multiply.

step 11
This is basically a repeat of steps 9 and 10, but this time we’re making white specks, to add more contrast to the design. The quick and easy way to do this is to duplicate the Charcoal Flecks layer, invert the colors, and then set the mode to Overlay. So instead of dark spots, you have white spots. Then you need to flip the layer horizontally and vertically so that the direction and distribution of the white spots is not the same as the dark spots.

step 12
To simulate an embossed font, type the words you need to add to the calling card, and then apply a Bevel and Emboss layer style. Set the Style to Emboss and set the Technique to Chisel Soft.

Change the Depth to 100%. The direction should be set to Down and the angle should be 120 degrees. Check Use global light and the altitude should be 30 degrees. Use Linear Glow Contour. Highlight Mode should be set to Screen. The shadow mode should be set to Multiply and the opacity for both should be 75%.

To make shapes on the business card that look printed with letters, just make the shapes you want and then convert them to strokes and then apply ‘stroke stroke’ with the color you want. Rasterize the layer afterwards and then do the same Bevel and Emboss layer styling procedure that we did with the typography above.

step 13
For additional layouts, add a red border to the bottom half of the contact card. To make the border, just make a new layer, select about an inch, and then fill it with color. You can use the paint bucket to color the selected area and then set the Layer Mode to Multiply and the Opacity to around 75%.

step 14
Lastly, you can put additional text on the red border to make things more balanced.