I needed some business cards for Zalaco, so I decided to create some rendered images in SolidWorks. I wanted something that showed some original, unique images that also conveyed some of my capabilities.

Rendered Front

The front of the cards is pretty simple. A dark powdercoated surface with embossed white letters for the name, and engraved silver letters for all of the other text. I threw some icons in for the contact information, as I thought those would have a nice effect with the engraving. The logo in the center is intentionally left the same color as the primary surface to give a bit of a watermark effect. A wide angle camera was used to capture more of the 3D look. I went through several iterations before I settled on this:

Rendered card front – dark powdercoated surface with engravede/embossed text.

Here’s an ISO view of the model in Solidworks. Phantom lines show the design limits of the card.

Rendered Back

For the back of the cards, I wanted something that popped out a bit more. The logo text is standing up while the descriptive text is laid flat on the background material, then everything is rendered from an isometric view. Nothing fancy, but I think this will help people have a better idea what I do (and remember when they dig up the card a year later). Since Moo let’s you have as many different images for the back as you want, I settled on 5 different color and texture combinations.

Blue plastic logo on red surface.

Yellow plastic on a brushed steel surface.

Mechanical Engineering Services

Gold logo on a dark powdercoated surface.

Black plastic on a matte gold surface.

Conclusion

3D rendering does provide some unique approaches to generating unique imagery for business cards. I have a few ideas for some 3D effects for the text side of the card I may try out in the future. When the cards show up from Moo.com, we’ll see how well this transfers to print.