Creating Business Cards with PrintShop 2
reviewed by Harry {doc} Babad
MacKiev http://www.mackiev.com/print_shop.html Commercial Product $60 USD, upgrade from version 1.x is $40 USD Requirements: Mac
OS X 10 .2 or later (including Mac OS X 10 .4 “Tiger”); G3-350 MHz processor
or faster; 192 MB RAM (256 MB recommended); 490 MB hard disk space (1 .3 GB
for full installation); 800 x 600 screen resolution; thousands of colors
(1024 x 768 recommended), CD-ROM drive. Now universal Binary Compliant This article based in part on information provided by Ted Bade in his macC The Print Shop review February 2006. http://www.maccompanion.com/macc/archives/february2006/Software/printshop.htm |
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The software was tested on a 1 GHz dual processor PowerPC G4 Macintosh with 2 GB DDR SDRAM running under OS X 10.4.6 with an hp Color LaserJet 3500 printer. |
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Product
and company names and logos in this review may be registered trademarks |
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Strength: A flexible product that makes business card creation easy for the novice and allows a more sophisticated user lost of room to design attractive cards. In addition, of course there are 19 other kinds of projects ranging from Calendars and booklets to envelopes and greeting cards that you can create with PrintShop 2, that are not available in a business card only software package.
Weakness: Lack a few of the bells and whistles of the more focused single-function Business Card Composer [BeLight Software, http://www.belightsoft.com/products/composer/]
I have been along time user of the Print Shop family of products starting with Broderbund’s underwhelming and un-Macintosh like Print Shop Deluxe CD Ensemble 1.x, and through their uninspiring The PrintShop for the Mac. No it’s not a typo, the name, err, changed. My primary use of the product, since in those days the clip art was just too cutesy, was to create business cards. Oh final bit of trivia, when the product changed from the ‘classic’ versions to that compatible with OS X all previously designed cards were junk; there was no translation program so I needed to start from scratch. Alas, the clip art I used for several logos where among the clips so I had to make due with scans of lower resolution to resurrect them. That’s yesterday, how about today.
In this macC issue, we’ve included a fine article by Joe Kissell, of TidBITS fame, on Comparing Business Card Design Software. In that article, Joe reviews Business Card Composer v 3.2 and SOHO Business Cards v. 1.6. My review is aimed at supplementing Joe’s review by sharing the business card making features of PrintShop 2; a vast improvement over the versions of Print Shop (err. PrintShop, I’ve previously used.
If you want to know more about the capabilities of the complete program check out Ted Bade’s fine review of The Print Shop, now a mackiev.com product, in the February 2006 Issue of macCompanion [Ted gave the product a 4 macC rating.] Now Ted has lots to share about the program’s overall features, making me want to use some of them in the future, but creating business cards was not a subject he focused on. Of course, with a due credit, I have either lifted or paraphrased Ted’s material where it was appropriate.
Using the Product/Features
I’m not going to go into detail on the cards I created with PrintShop 2 for this review, except to share that I took a dozen different cards I collected at a meeting in march, in a divers set of styles, and replicated the essential features of their layouts with ease. Obviously, I did not have the corporate logo of the folks whose cards I gathered, but I could add clips to the logo locations on the test card as needed.
When you first run
PrintShop, you are presented with a “Project Manager” which is your doorway to
putting together a project. As you can see in Ted’s article, there are 20
starting points for various PrintShop projects, including a blank, start from
scratch-no limitations one; a place that you can create whatever suits your
needs. Warning, do not get lost, or let your curiosity lead you astray. Go
straight to business cards [Setup Assistant > Stationary > Business
Cards]
Selecting any Business Cards brings your through a series of questions designed to build the foundations of your project. For business cards, you get to choose between using a Quick Start Layout, having the program Help you Design, or Starting from Scratch. Surprise, surprise — this is what you would get when selecting any other project, but we love consistent interfaces in our software. So your first step is to decide how much help you want with the project. I recommend you either start from scratch or use “Help me Design.
The “Start from Scratch” option exists that leaves you to your own devices with a blank layout. The result will be more professional, unless you are a real design klutz. As Ted noted, “remember, using a canned greeting card (or whatever) is no worse then buying one from a store ;-). The recipient need not know it was a canned card! They will think you created it yourself.
“No matter what type of project you build or how much help you ask for, you will make use of the extensive library of graphics and clip art that comes with the PrintShop package. There is a lot of stuff to choose from on the CD. You might even spend more time looking for just the right piece of clip art you will in creating the rest of the project. The Print Shop package could really use a booklet showing thumbnails of all the graphics.”
Since I own several massive collections of clip art and have a fast Internet connection the choosing of graphic content can be lengthy when either picky (I am) or a perfectionist (I’m not.)
Now, back to business cards. After you decide whether you should design a portrait or landscape style card, there are two elements in a card you need to consider. That’s aside from the, from a design basis, trivial information about you and your business that you need to include to make it useful such as your contact information. [Did I say that?]
The first is the card layout. PrintShop 2 provides you with a good but not comprehensive, set of tools for business card design. This includes the selection of alternative templates that serve as good designs for the layout of a card as well as allowing creating background effects for your card.
Selecting the format of a card to suit commercial card stock and choosing a background for your card is easy.
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Help me Select a Card Format |
Help Me Design a Backdrop |
The second resource you need is obtained from available graphics collection. Clip art, you know, is used for either the card’s background, if desired, and selecting any logo [small image] that represents you or your business.
In general, you can check out the clipart provided by the developer, do a Google images search, or use a purchased clip art collection. My favorite, Print Explosion by Nova Development www.hemera.com/; is my collection of choice. However, I also own cutesier The Big Box of Art by Hemera www.hemera.com/. This collection may not still be available since it’ was not listed on the Hemera web site. Alternatively, for folks with well-focused image demands, you can check out the more serious web based collections to find and pay for just the image you want. PhotoShop 2’s integration with Apple’s address book is excellent and should you need it for backgrounds, so is its iLife integration.
Design 101 - Remember Babad’s third law: In search of excellence you can do better that you really need taking just a bit more time, or spend days searching for perfection. It’s a Zen thing that business school majors study under fancier names. The illustration below fails the squint rule. [Did I have to squint at the card to get the contact information?]
Several Minor Gripes
Template for Card
Layouts — I would have preferred a few more than 10 business card layout
templates to chose from, although I did duplicate manually most the test cards
I tried to create.
I hate clutter. Look at the worst business card I’ve ever considered using.
I also found the background’s provided (e.g., page art) useless, for the most part since they often detracted from the card’s clarify and readability. Admittedly, you could use the controls provided and decrease the opacity of the background making it less offensive, but as an avid fan of Robin Williams’ design teachings,
Entourage Integration — Integration with the address book function of Microsoft’s Entourage would be nice for those folks who prefer it to Apple’s mail and address book programs.
Conclusions
Buying PrintShop 2 solely for creating business cards is not a good buying decision. However, if you can use even two or three of the 19 other project capabilities in this excellent graphics program, then also use it for creating your business cards. Indeed, prepare an integrated set of stationary, envelopes and cards for your business – its fat and easy.
I agree with Ted Bade “people often don’t take PrintShop as a serious adult program because it supplies much in the way of lower end and/or “kiddy-ish” graphics, which are incorporated in its examples. This doesn’t mean that better images cannot be used with the program or that it cannot be used for more “serious” projects.” As noted earlier in this review, for projects such as business cards, and greeting cards I usually chose from a broader selection of graphics, but the enhanced clip art collection provided by MacKiev might suit you just fine.
Overall, I found that creating business cards that met my esthetic needs with the product was easier to do than using the more sophisticated Business Card Composer, but should my needs become more demanding I would for such a project, switch to the later. [Note, since Joe Kissell rated BCC at 4 macC’s, in all fairness I could not give the single use score for PrintShop 2 a higher rating. doc_Babad. Nevertheless, I do like PrintShop 2 better then SOHO Business Cards, which I also own and have fooled with.
For business card creation, I rate this product 3.5 macCs.
