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I'm realizing I must have missed something in design school. I work for a huge family of car dealerships- I make the business cards in Illustrator. They are a double sided folded design- the inside featuring 25 brand logos. I make a new file for each employee and keep them in a file.

Whenever I work on them-- everything blanks out when I move something- computer gets very slow. I know this is a huge open-ended question- but-- am I designing these wrong?

Is there a video or training on print design that could help me?

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  • It's impossible to say if this is a workflow issue or computer spec issue without know more. If this is the only project where your computer slows down, then maybe your workflow for this business card could be improved. 25 Logos doesn't sound like an issue to me. Maybe InDesign would work better for this situation?
    – AndrewH
    Aug 23, 2022 at 13:51
  • That did occur to me. I was also having a Creative Cloud issue with my Libraries panel-- just resolved that at least-- I was wondering, though, since I have to make cards for HUNDREDS of people-- if I'm doing this wrong?
    – Carolyn Maszczak
    Aug 23, 2022 at 13:59
  • I would recommend using InDesign and importing the data with Data Merge. Then you might only need 1 file and then populate the information using a CSV file.
    – AndrewH
    Aug 23, 2022 at 17:51
  • Even without data merge, Parent Pages in InDesign would be exceptionally beneficial for such a card. Even if you were smart enough to utilize Symbols in Illustrator, having an iteration or separate file for each and every name is simply undue overhead in terms of organization. Indesign... 1 file all names and Parent Pages ensure all cards have the same layout.
    – Scott
    Aug 23, 2022 at 18:36
  • I just watched a few videos on Data Merge. I don't think I was EVER taught anything about this. Thanks for all the suggestions!
    – Carolyn Maszczak
    Aug 23, 2022 at 20:16

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I think you have two different issues in your workflow.

The first one has been addressed in the comments. Data Merge. It also can be done inside Illustrator. You can link, not only names, emails and phones, but also graphic resources, such as photos.

https://helpx.adobe.com/illustrator/using/data-driven-graphics-templates-variables.html

But regarding the lag using 25 logos, probably there is a couple of them that are not optimized.

If you have some time, see if you have unnecessary shapes or elements on the logos.

Ideally, a logo should be a vector element, but perhaps you have a really big raster image as a logo of thousands of pixels when you need a really smaller size; or you have a thousand vector elements making a texture; things like that.

So, I would do a check on each one. I would also see the weight of the file itself. For 25 logos for a business card the file should not weigh more than an Mb, a few at most.

Also, a logo should not have blending modes or effects that need to be redrawn each time you move an element.

Another thing to consider, (I am not sure if it is worth it for a business card template) is to learn the difference between embedded elements and linked ones.

https://helpx.adobe.com/illustrator/using/manage-linked-and-embedded-files.html

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