Business Card Design "showcasing"

Hi, I'm a "self-taught" designer using illustrator, learning only from tutorials and trial and error. I have not had much experience in business card design. For the most part I understand layout of them and other aspects but would love to showcase them as well as some of the designers do with some dimension and stacks and shadows. Does anyone happen to know where there may be a tutorial on changing perspective of an entire card and giving it that "3D" effect? Thanks to any who can help

Hello. Are you referring to changing the perspective of a business card within Illustrator, or are you talking about those Photoshop 3d mock-ups that you see in contests?

If you mean within Illustrator, the quickest and easiest way to get an accurate perspective on an object is to use the "3D Rotate" option (Effect>3D>Rotate...) and you can play with the settings to get the perspective you want. There are other ways but this is probably the easiest method.

If you mean the realistic 3d mock-ups, you can just google 3d business card mockups and you should find both free and pay files that you can download.

This is how I do it.

1st: I make the design in Illustrator the way I want it.
2nd: I select everything that is active on the artboard and then I group the layers (cmd or cntrl + G)
3rd: I duplicate that group and then I merge it with the pathfinder tool and then make it into and compound path (cmd or cntrl + 8)
4th: I then duplicate the compound path a few times and then I slightly move them a part from each other so that they look like they are on top of each other.
5th: I then select all the duplicated layers besides the top layer and then I go into (effects / distort / free distort ). Now I just adjust to my liking and then you will get that layer look. Then you add a shadow to the image and it will give the effect you looking for.

Thanks HappyGD, those are what i was talking about. Thanks Squewheet, I will have to try your way as I only have illustrator.

thank for this