A template is not decoration. It is a set of decisions about where the photo goes, how big the name is, and how much information fits — made once by someone else so you do not have to make them under time pressure. Choosing well is mostly about matching the template’s assumptions to your situation.
Why templates exist
Anyone can drag text boxes around a canvas. The result is usually a card where the name is too small, the logo competes with the photo, and a long job title runs off the edge. A good template has already solved those problems: it fixes the type hierarchy, reserves space for a photo, and leaves a margin so nothing important is near the trim line.
That is also the reason to be careful about heavily customising one. Once you move the photo and change the type sizes, you have thrown away the thinking you chose the template for.
The four layout families
Photo left, text right
The most common arrangement, and for good reason. People read a card left to right, and a photo in the top-left corner is found instantly. It suits five or six fields comfortably, and it survives a long name better than the alternatives.
Use it for: employee, student and member cards.
Photo top or centred
The photo sits across the top or in the middle, with text below and sometimes a colour band at the bottom. It reads well when the photo is the dominant element and there is little text — event passes, volunteer badges, club cards.
Watch out for: very little room for long names, and an awkward gap if a card has no photo at all.
Full-bleed background
A colour or photographic background with text laid over it. Striking on screen and on a good card printer; a liability on anything cheap. Dark or busy backgrounds reduce contrast, and printers drift between runs, so a design that depends on a precise shade of navy will not stay consistent.
Use it for: short-lived event credentials where impact matters more than durability.
Two-sided
The front carries identity — photo, name, organisation — and the back carries the rest: terms, barcode, emergency instructions, a QR code. This doubles the usable area and keeps the front uncluttered.
Watch out for: cards worn in a wallet or a badge holder show only one side. Anything a checker needs at a glance must be on the front.
Matching the template to the job
Two cards can look similar and have completely different requirements:
- A gym membership card is scanned at a turnstile. The member number or barcode needs prominence, and the card must survive being carried daily.
- An exam invigilation badge is worn for two hours and read by students from a distance. A large name and role beat every other field.
- A volunteer badge is often reprinted for each event. Cheap, colourful, and disposable is a feature, not a compromise.
Write down the single thing someone needs to see first, then pick the template that gives it the most space.
What to check before you commit
- Field count. Does the template have a labelled slot for every field you need? Adding an eighth line to a five-field layout is how cards become unreadable.
- Longest realistic text. Test the worst case, not the average: a 40-character surname, a job title like “Deputy Head of Facilities and Estates”, an organisation with two names.
- Photo shape. Portrait or landscape? A template designed for a 3:4 portrait photo will look wrong with a cropped landscape image.
- Missing data. What happens when someone has no photo yet, or no phone number? A layout that collapses without one field will slow you down on day one.
- Print size. Preview at actual size — 85.6 × 54 mm — not on a full-screen monitor. Text that looks comfortable at 27 inches is often 6 pt on the card.
Customisation: what is safe and what is not
Safe changes:
- colours, to match your organisation;
- the logo, swapped for your own at a comparable size;
- the background of an empty area, as long as contrast is unaffected;
- the header text, if it fits the space the template reserves for it.
Changes that break a layout:
- moving the photo, which unbalances everything aligned to it;
- introducing a third or fourth type size;
- shrinking margins to fit more text;
- adding a border or heavy frame close to the edge.
Consistency across a batch
One template, one set of sizes, one crop ratio for photos — for the whole organisation. Even with those rules, cards produced years apart will differ slightly: printers drift, stock changes, laminate yellows. The design should still look like a set, which is why a simple layout with strong contrast ages far better than a delicate one.
Print-friendliness traps
- Thin, light typefaces. Elegant on screen, patchy when printed.
- Light text on dark panels. Looks modern, fills in on cheap printers and fails in dim light.
- Fine hairlines and 1 px borders. Invisible or uneven at card size.
- Text within 3 mm of the edge. Trimming is never exact; the name will get clipped eventually.
- Colour used as the only signal. A red card for expired memberships is invisible to someone who cannot distinguish red.
A short checklist
- The most important field has the most space.
- The longest realistic name and job title still fit.
- The photo shape matches the template’s slot.
- Nothing important is within 3 mm of the edge.
- Two type sizes, three at most.
- Dark text on light background.
- The layout has been previewed at actual size.
- Empty fields do not leave the card looking broken.
- One template is used across the whole batch.
- Colour is not the only way information is conveyed.
Choosing in practice
ID Card Maker includes templates for employee, student, membership, event and general cards, each already laid out for a photo and a small number of fields. Start from the closest match to your purpose rather than a blank canvas, change the colours and the logo, and leave the layout alone — that is what it is there for.
