Add a little holiday cheer to your Business Cards
Business cards are cards bearing business information about a company or individual. They are shared during formal introductions as a convenience and a memory aid. A business card typically includes the giver’s name, company affiliation (usually with a logo) and contact information such as street addresses, telephone number(s), fax number, e-mail addresses and website. It can also include telex, bank account, tax code. Traditionally many cards were simple black text on white stock; today a professional business card will sometimes include one or more aspects of striking visual design.
GallleryCollection.com, is a leader in personalized Christmas Cards is helping spread a little christmas cheer by sponsoring FREE downloads of the Charles Dicken’s “Christmas Carol” on the Daily Lit.com. The DailyLit is a publisher of serialized books in digital form. Additionally, in a very un-Scrooge-like fashion, the Christmas Cards publisher will be sending an email out to customers who haven’t yet ordered (likely due to tough economic times) and giving away holiday cards to the first 100 people who order up to 250 greeting cards per order!
Business Christmas Cards are frequently used during sales calls (visits) to provide potential customers with a means to contact the business or representative of the business.
A 90 x 55 mm, full colour front, one colour back Australian business card.
Business cards are printed on some form of card stock with exact parameters dependent on national or local norms, the desired effect and method of printing, and cost. The common weight of a business card may vary on your location. Generally, business cards are printed on stock that is 350g/m2 (weight) or 12pt (thickness).
High quality business cards without full-color photographs are normally printed using spot colors on sheetfed offset printing presses. Some companies have gone so far as to trademark their spot colors (examples are UPS brown, Los Angeles Lakers’ purple, and Tide’s orange). If a business card logo is a single color and the type is another color, the process is considered two color. More spot colors can be added depending on the needs of the card. With the onset of digital printing, and batch printing, it is now cost effective to print business cards in full color.
To simulate the “raised-print” effect of printing with engraved plates, a less-expensive process called thermography was developed that uses the application of a plastic powder, which adheres to the wet ink. The cards are then passed through a heating unit, which melts the plastic onto the card. Spot UV varnish onto matte laminate can also have a similar effect.
Full color cards, or cards that use many colors, are printed on sheetfed presses as well; however, they use the CMYK (cyan, magenta, yellow, and black) four-color printing process. Screens of each color overprinted on one another create a wide gamut of color. The downside to this printing method is that screened colors if examined closely will reveal tiny dots, whereas spot color cards are printed solid in most cases. Spot colors should be used for simple cards with line art.
Some terminology in reference to full color printing:
4/0 – Full Color Front / No Print To Back
4/1 – Full Color Front / One color to reverse
4/4 – Full Color Front / Full Color Back
These names are pronounced as “four back zero” or “four back four”.
A business card can also be coated with a UV glossy coat (offset-uv Printing). The coat is applied just like another ink using an additional unit on a sheetfed press. That being said, UV coats can also be applied as a spot coating – meaning areas can be coated, and other areas can be left uncoated. This creates additional design potential.
Business Cards can also be printed with a digital copier, which uses toner baked onto the surface of the card. Generally these cards have to be printed on lighter stocks so as to not damage the copier. To compensate for this a UV coating or plastic lamination can be applied to thicken the cards up and make them more durable.
UV coats, and other coatings such as Aqueous Coatings are used to speed manufacturing of the cards. Cards that are not dry will “offset” which means the ink from the front of one card will end up on the back of the next one. UV coatings are generally highly glossy but are more likely to fingerprint, while aqueous coatings are not noticeable but increase the life of the card. It is possible to use a dull aqueous coating on uncoated stock and get some very durable uncoated cards.
When cards are designed, they are given bleeds if color extends to the edge of the finished cut size. (A bleed is the extension of printed lines or colors beyond the line where the paper it is printed on will be cut.) This is to help ensure that the paper will cut without white edges due to very small differences in where the blade cuts the cards, and it is almost impossible to cut the cards properly without.
Just being a hair off can result in white lines, and the blade itself will pull the paper while cutting. The image on the paper can also shift from page to page which is called a bounce, which is generally off by a hairline on an offset press, but can be quite larger on lower end equipment such as a copier or a duplicator press. Bleeds are typically an extra 1⁄8 to 1⁄4 in to all sides of the card.
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Filed under: Business Ideas, Product Reviews, a product review Tagged: business cards, cards, holiday business cards, holiday cards, professional business cards
That was a very intresting article, especdially the production of the cards part
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I usually print my free business cards at DCP Print and its nice to know how it works in there.