It’s already the future and everything has evolved.  Nothing has been left behind and that includes business cards.  Now there are multiple options you can choose from and it’s great to know what all these options are and mean.  We’ve noted most available options below.

• Uncoated Business Cards – These are cards printed on card stock that has no coating.  Often favored by clients who like to have the ability to write on their cards with any writing instrument.
• Silk Business Cards – The silk refers to the texture of the lamination on the card stock used to make silk business cards.  The lamination has a muted sheen and is water resistant.
• Soft Touch Business Cards – These like the silk, the soft touch refers to the lamination on the card stock.  It is also known as Suede or Velvet Lamination.  The surface has a very smooth and creamy texture to it.  Most purchased cards of 2018.
• Thick Business Cards – When we say thick, we mean at least 32pts thick.  The higher the number the thicker the card.  However, there is such thing as too thick.  These days people prefer thicker business cards.
• Edge Painted Business Cards – When we print our business cards, they start off on a white card stock.  When cut down to size, the edges of the cards remain white.  We offer painted edge business cards to hide the white edge.
• Raised Foil and Spot UV Business Cards – These cards are some of the most amazing cards we carry.  They are printed in our 19pt Soft Touch stock with either Raised Foil or Raised Spot UV.  The raised effect gives the selected area another dimension in a shiny, glossy finish that is lifted without affecting the reverse.
• Foil Business Cards – After a business card is printed, it can be finished with foil stamping.  Foil is applied by pressing heat against a special foil that adheres to the card surface.  These foils come in several colors and design finishes such as holographic or flat colors that aren’t metallic.  Some foil business cards require a custom quotation if not available in the shop menu.
• Magnetic Business Cards – Printed on 1 side and on a 20mil magnetic vinyl.  These are printed magnets in business card form and size.  These are a great return on investment.  People still put these on the refrigerator doors and remind them of your business daily.
• Plastic Business Cards – Used as business cards, rewards cards and other uses, plastic business cards are a great choice.  They are printed in a 20pt thick plastic card stock and finished in 1/8th inch rounded corners for safety.  Virtually indestructible and tear resistant.
• Kraft Business Cards – Out of all the business cards we print, these are printed on a brown kraft recycled card stock.  With the use of a white 5th color, you can print white or on top of white to achieve brighter colors on the kraft colored stock.

We know that some of our clients are already super star designers, but a great design is ruined when guidelines are ignored.  If you choose to upload your own design, here are some things to look for.

• Print Bleeds – A typical business card size is 3.5×2.  It requires a file that is prepared at 3.625×2.125 to print and trim.  Once the cards are printed, the extra .125 is then trimmed away leaving the 3.5×2 inch card.  If the background of your cards are black, make the black reach past the cut line to the bleed line.  This way when we trim, there isn’t a white line showing on one side.
• RGB to CMYK color – People who work as photographers or web designers are use to working in RGB color mode.  While this is correct for those applications, it isn’t for printing.  You should start and finish your work in CMYK, no matter if the color you liked isn’t there anymore.  That’s because it can’t be printed in CMYK inks.
• 300dpi – DPI refers to Dots Per Inch.  In commercial offset printing, 300dpi is what is used for high resolution output.  You can choose this is Photoshop, but in Illustrator, it is already 300dpi when saved.
• Borders and Perfect Centering – It’s always great to have your files print and cut exactly as you designed them, but there are limitations to cutting.  A design that is meant to be perfectly centered or has a border will likely have some kind of cutting issues.  Best to design based on product and limitations.
• Shifting and Alignment – You may have artwork that has elements overlaping like foil over spot uv.  The spot uv and foil options are done on different machines and different time.  Trying to register your spot uv and foil to butt up to each other precisely isn’t possible.  Make sure your design allows for at least a 32nd of an inch and be aware of possible shifting.  Please see terms and conditions for more info.
• Color Reproduction – We completely understand that your company may have specific colors associated with your branding design.  Unfortunately, every order and every card stock has it’s own characteristics that determine final output.  Uncoated stocks tend to print about 15% lighter in most cases.  Some colors like greys and blues can shift often, using an EYE DROPPER selection for the color choice may result in color reproduction problems.  Use simple, round numbered color formulas – Example: C94 M37 Y28 K66 – change to C100 M35 Y30 K65.  Even better, if you can use just a couple of the CMYK colors to get close to yours, then do that better.  The more colors in a formula, the more chances of a color shift.  DON’T DESIGN IN RGB, THEN CHANGE TO CMYK.  START IN CMYK AND END IN CMYK.
• Converting Your Fonts – This is super important, you need to make sure your fonts are either flattened in the artwork if using Photoshop or Converted To Outlines if using Illustrator or InDesign.  If not, your fonts will convert to our system fonts.