Online business card designer for cards, IDs and badges

You can design every card type CardDeck issues from one editor: digital business cards, employee and student ID cards, event badges and membership cards. The same brand kit and layout tools apply to all of them.

Card types and where they're used

• Digital business cards: a mobile page with photo, title, contact buttons and links, plus a QR code. See digital business cards.
• Employee ID cards: photo, department, employee number, validity and a verification QR code or Code 128 barcode.
• Student ID cards: crest, class, section, roll number and academic year.
• Event badges: role bands for attendee, speaker, sponsor, staff and press, with a check-in QR code.
• Membership cards: tier, member number and expiry date.

Which card types you can issue depends on your plan: employee IDs on Team and Business, student IDs, badges and membership cards on Business. The designer itself is included on every plan.

Digital and print from one design

Each design has a phone view and a print view. A digital business card is mostly seen on a phone; an employee ID is mostly printed; an event badge is often both. You set the layout once and check both views before publishing, so the printed card and the digital copy carry the same details.

Pick a template close to your style, apply your brand kit, adjust the fields and QR placement, and check the preview. Most people finish a first design in about ten minutes.

Step by step

1. Choose a template. Browse the card templates and pick one with a layout you like. Templates already use readable type sizes, safe print margins and QR codes sized to scan.
2. Add your brand kit. Upload your logo, set primary and accent colors, and choose fonts. These are saved for every future card.
3. Pick your fields. Turn on the details you want: photo, name, title, company, phone, email, website, social links, location and a call-to-action button such as "Book a call".
4. Arrange the layout. Reorder fields, set alignment and choose where the QR code sits. For printed cards, decide what goes on the front and back.
5. Preview on phone and print. Check that text is readable on a small screen and that nothing crosses the safe zone in print.
6. Publish. Your card gets a permanent link like carddeck.co/yourname and a QR code.

Mistakes to avoid

• Too many links. One clear action gets more taps than twenty buttons.
• Low-contrast text or codes, such as pale gray on white.
• Tiny type on printed cards. Keep body text at a size you can read at arm's length.
• A logo that dominates. Your name and role should be the first thing people read.

A brand kit stores your logo, colors and fonts in one place so every card and template uses the same assets. Change the kit and the templates that use it pick up the change.

What goes into a brand kit

• Logos: a full logo for wide layouts and a compact mark for small spaces such as badge corners
• Colors: a primary color, an accent and neutral text colors, with enough contrast for reading and scanning
• Fonts: a heading and body pairing from the curated set, or your own uploaded brand fonts on Business

Brand kits for teams

On Team and Business plans, admins build the kit and the templates, then lock them. Members fill in their own name, title, photo and links, but cannot change colors, fonts or layout. That's how a 40-person company ends up with 40 cards that look like they came from one designer. The team business cards page covers the admin side.

Multiple brands

Business plans support multiple brands and workspaces, each with its own kit. A group with three companies, or a university with separate schools, can keep distinct identities under one account.

Color and contrast tips

Dark text on a light background is the safest choice for print and screens. Keep QR codes dark on light, and if you use a brand color for the code, check it in the preview and with a real scan before you publish.

Choose a QR or barcode field in the layout panel, pick its position and size, and the designer fills it with each card's own code. Give it clear space and enough size to scan.

QR code placement rules

• Size: at least 2 × 2 cm on a printed card held in hand. Scale up for distance: roughly one-tenth of the scanning distance, so about 10 cm for a poster read from a meter away.
• Quiet zone: keep a clear margin around the code, at least four modules wide, as the QR standard ISO/IEC 18004 expects.
• Contrast: dark code on a light background. Inverted or low-contrast codes fail on some phones.
• Position: near an edge, away from folds, lanyard holes and clips. On badges, the lower half is easiest to scan without lifting the badge.

Barcodes on ID and member cards

Use a barcode when an existing reader needs a number, such as a door reader, library desk or point-of-sale scanner. Code 128 suits employee and member numbers; keep solid black bars on white and clear margins on both sides. You can learn more on the QR code generator page and the barcode pages.

One field, many cards

Because the code is a field, not an image, each card gets the right code automatically, which is what makes batch generation work. The same applies to photos, names and numbers.

Use a template with the right physical size, keep important content inside the safe zone, let the background extend into the bleed, and export a vector PDF. CardDeck's print layouts include bleed and safe zones by default.

Sizes the designer supports

• CR80 ID cards: 85.6 × 54 mm, the standard ID and access card size, portrait or landscape. Used for employee ID cards and student IDs.
• Standard business cards: for printing paper cards with your QR code on the back.
• Event badges: common sizes such as 4 × 3 in, 3 × 4 in and A6, plus custom sizes. See the event badge maker.

Print checklist

1. Keep text and logos inside the safe zone, a few millimeters in from the trim edge.
2. Extend background color or images into the bleed so there are no white slivers after trimming.
3. Use photos and logos large enough for print; low-resolution images look soft on cards.
4. Check both sides and their orientation if the card is two-sided.
5. Print one sample, scan the QR code and barcode, and check the color before printing the batch.

From one design to a thousand cards

Once the design is ready, use it with the batch generator to fill in names, photos and numbers from a spreadsheet and export a print-ready PDF for the whole list.

Yes. You can upload a background image made in another tool and place live fields and codes on top, and Business plans can upload brand fonts. Other plans choose from a curated font set.

Importing an existing design

If your brand team already has an ID card or badge background designed elsewhere, export it as an image at the final card size, upload it as the template background, then add CardDeck fields for name, photo, number and QR code in the right positions. The background stays fixed; the fields fill in per person.

Tips for uploaded backgrounds

• Export at the exact card size, including bleed, so nothing shifts
• Leave empty areas where live fields will sit; don't bake sample names into the artwork
• Keep the area behind the QR code plain and light
• Check text contrast against the background in the preview

Locking for teams

After building the template, lock it so members can edit only their open fields. This keeps a carefully designed layout from being changed one card at a time. Admins can still update the template later, and every card that uses it follows.