Alas, this is impossible in most situations. We use a very large volume printer facility that is almost entirely automated. Once in the system (and this happens very quickly from the time the order is sent in) there is no room for changes of any type. This “no interference” policy keeps the line constantly moving through the prep and printing stages to the benefit of everyone.

The estimate described on each card choice for turn-around processing is based on experience and is pretty accurate. But it is an estimate, not a guarantee. In 95% of the orders we can hit this date or a day or two before.

What we can control is the shipping method because this does not involve tampering with the assembly line. If it would help you, we can upgrade your shipping from ground to 2 day or even overnight. We can get costs of the various options and let you know. Please let us know of your need before you order, not after the job is in production.

If you want your glossy business cards or matte business cards fast let us know before you order. We can expedite processing and shipping as long as you don’t need extra services such as UV spot, etc. We process these though an alternate source that does have some flexibility in expediting a particular order. That, combined with faster shipping, may well meet your deadline.

If you’re in a hurry, don’t forget our Design-It-Online Express Business Cards. Here you can get your finished business cards delivered in just a few days after you complete your design. Now that’s fast!

Plastic business cards are generally available in 2 thicknesses: 12mil and 30mil.  Just for perspective, the 30mil thickness is similar to that of standard credit cards.  Conversely, the 12mil thickness is much thinner, closely mirroring the thickness of a more “standard” business card like silk business cards or glossy business cards.  Both of the available thicknesses are extremely durable and elegant, but the 30mil would probably be considered top of the line because people generally equate thickness with quality.

In terms of color options, you can select from 1 color, 2 colors, or full color on both sides.  Each option is uniquely priced, and your choice will largely boil down to the level of perceived quality you seek.  For example, the highest quality option would be appropriate for a high-end retailer of big-ticket items, whereas a seller of nuts and bolts would probably be better served pursuing a lower-end option.   The key thing to remember is that the quality of your custom business cards should match the perceived quality of whatever it is that you sell.

Finally, for the ultimate in plastic custom business cards, you can upload your own artwork.  This is a new option that was recently introduced, as previously our plastic business cards could only be designed online.  Thus, if you have a logo, custom imagery / graphics, or precise color requirements, you can now upload your own design to achieve the exact look and feel you’re going for.

If plastic business cards are beyond your budget, consider our new poly frost business cards. As long as your design is bold and basic, this is a viable alternative.

So there you have it, a quick snapshot of plastic business cards.  One other thing to keep in mind is that plastic business cards come with rounded corners; square / standard corners are not available because they are too sharp and could cause injury.  The same is true for metal business cards.  Therefore, if you absolutely require square corners, you will have to stick with a more standard type of business card, like silk business cards, translucent business cards, or glossy business cards.

First and foremost, the poly frost plastic business cards are full color with one exception – white.  There is no 100% white (C=0%, M=0%, Y=0%, K=0%) ink printed on translucent business cards.  Any part of your artwork that is 100% white will not receive any ink and therefore will be completely translucent. 

Said another way, if you want any part of your physical custom business cards to be completely translucent, make sure you have 100% white in those areas within your design file.  If you do want something akin to a white background, then utilize a slightly off-white CMYK color (for example, C=2%, M=2%, Y=2%, K=0%).  A color like this will look white to the naked eye.

Generally, poly frost business cards with completely translucent backgrounds look the best.  Light colored backgrounds work well too, just keep in mind that the darker the background color, the “dimmer” the translucent effect, which would seem to defeat the purpose.

Additionally, when creating your artwork, you would be well-served to remember that these cards are frosted, similar to the distorted translucency of a shower door.  Therefore, extremely small fonts or intricate designs are not recommended.  Your best bet would be to make sure that all fonts and lines are at least 10pt.  This will help ensure that your custom business cards will not appear overly blurry due to the frosted translucency of the poly frost card stock.    

So, there you have it.  Following these tips will help ensure that your files are optimized, which in turn will enable your translucent plastic business cards to turn out perfectly every time!

First and foremost, the new site has been designed to make navigation as easy as possible by linking to all of our custom business cards from each and every page.  Every product is categorized into one of two buckets: those that require you to upload your own files, and those that require you to design your business card right online. 

This improves upon the previous version of the site, which only listed the full breadth of product options on a single catalog page.  Whether you’re looking for silk business cards, plastic business cards, metal business cards, or anything in between, every product option is now visible and easy to find.  No matter what page you are on, every business card product option is only a click away.

Another key benefit of the redesign is a streamlined checkout process.  The number of checkout screens has been reduced, and you now have easier access to helpful information throughout the entire process, like file specs, ordering steps, and detailed product feature descriptions. 

Another enhancement is that our point and click interface to design business cards has been improved.  We now offer more business card templates, all of which are searchable by keyword or category.  The new interface also offers more design capabilities around font styles, font sizes, font colors, background colors, card layout, and even image orientation.  You can even upload your own logo or graphical images, an option that was previously unavailable.  

Lastly, the website now offers an updated, visually pleasing look with rotating banners at the top of the homepage and improved product images elsewhere.  The aesthetic design is soft on the eyes, and the overall layout was created based upon real data compiled from actual customers navigating the site.  Yes, in a sense, YOU – our customer – helped us create this terrific new website.  The overall effect (we hope) is a more intuitive and efficient user experience.      

Enjoy!

There are 2 primary ways to facilitate a business card fold: perforation and scoring.

A perforation is a series of small holes on a sheet of paper so that a section can tear easily over a straight line.  This is a common attribute of event tickets, business reply cards, notebook paper, and hundreds of other items regularly used in our society.

A score, on the other hand, is a crease applied to a sheet made of a heavy stock paper to eliminate cracking and to facilitate a straight and accurate fold.  Pick up any greeting card, and you will see scoring.

Folded business cards are typically printed on a 4” x 3.5” card stock.  The 4” side is folded in half along the scored or perforated line, leaving you with a standard 2” x 3.5” business card when folded.  Scoring or perforation typically works best on silk business cards and glossy business cards.

The main benefit of this type of business card is that it offers additional “marketing space” for your card.  In other words, instead of the standard 2 sides (front and back), you now have 4 sides to work with – double the marketing space.  You could leverage this additional space for any number of creative purposes – for example, including a map to your business, your company mission, or even an appointment card.

The other benefit is that folded business cards are extremely unique, and as such will help your business cards stand out from the masses.  Unique business cards are more likely to be retained by customers and clients, even if just for novelty reasons.

Folded silk business cards also allow for additional enhancements, like spot UV, foil stamping, and embossing, any of which will serve to dramatically embellish your folded business card’s uniqueness and stickiness even more.

So there you have it – a quick and dirty overview of folded business cards.  To sum it up, the folding is usually done on silk business cards or glossy business cards, utilizing either perforation or scoring.

Till next time…

So, what exactly is a silk business card?  Well, the silky coating is accomplished via silk-lamination, and this laminate coating is completely unnoticeable and invisible unless you try to tear the card.  It is this lamination which gives silk business cards their uniqueness. 

For one, it makes the cards more durable.  The laminate coating makes the cards a little more difficult to tear, and helps minimize the possibility of corners and edges getting frayed.  Additionally, the silk lamination is completely writeable, meaning you can write on the card with pens, pencils, and markers with ease. 

Another key attribute of silk cards is that they are non-glossy, which eliminates the common problems associated with glossy business cards such as fingerprinting, streaks, smudges, and the cards sticking together.  Non-shiny silk lamination eliminates these types of problems.

Additionally, the non-shiny look is more upscale and elegant.  Many people correctly perceive glossy UV business cards to be a relatively low end business card product.  The non-shiny look seems to be “in” these days, which positively influences people’s perception of quality. 

Finally, the durability and composition of the silk cardstock make it the best choice for business card enhancement features like spot UV, embossing, and foil stamping. 

Spot UV business cards in particular offer a unique look, as the areas treated with the spot UV are slightly raised and shiny compared to the non-shiny silk cardstock.  Thus, the treated areas “jump off the page” and provide a striking visual impact.  It would not be possible to produce spot UV business cards on an inherently glossy cardstock.

Embossing also works better on silk business cards.  Embossing is the process of raising certain design elements by virtue of them getting “pushed through” from the backside.  The net effect is similar to the account number on a standard credit card, where the numbers are raised on the front and recessed on the back.  As you can probably guess, embossing is a delicate process that puts much stress on the cardstock, and thus is a more appropriate enhancement feature for durable business cards like silk.

To sum it all up, silk business cards are laminated, durable, writable, non-glossy, and support enhancement features.  Outside of metal business cards or plastic business cards, silk cards are generally considered the highest-end business cardstock in the market today.  They have an elegant look and feel, and do not have the same inconveniences as glossy business cards.

I celebrate Christmas, and it is truly my favorite time of the year.  But hey, this blog is about business cards, right?  So I thought I would combine the two topics and list 10 things you could do with your custom business cards this holiday season…

1. Include a business card with your holiday business correspondence (for example, put your business card in any Christmas cards you send to your clients).
2. Distribute your card at any and all holiday functions you happen to attend.
3. Use your glossy business cards as gift labels.
4. Print silk business cards with coupon codes in order to facilitate a holiday promotion.
5. Find places within your local mall to distribute your business cards.  You may even be able to partner with a few stores to put a stack of your cards on the checkout counter.  All malls are packed with people this time of year, so think about ways to tap into this mass of humanity.
6. If you are in a business that encourages holiday gift-giving to clients, a nice touch is to give out a small box of candies – about the diameter of a standard business card, just enough to fit a few pieces of chocolate – and use a graphic of your custom business cards as the lid.
7. If you have metal business cards, think about transforming them into Christmas tree ornaments and hand them out to clients as holiday gifts.
8. Going to a family function?  Why not descretley pass out your card to everyone in attendance? 
9. Expand your silk business cards to the size of a holiday greeting card, and mail them to clients. 
10. Use your glossy business cards as kindling to get the ‘ole Yule Log started! (ha, ha…I just had to end with some humor).

So there you have it, an imprompteu list of things to do with your custom business cards this holiday season.  Whether you have glossy business cards, silk business cards, or metal business cards, I hope you found this blog post both enjoyable and useful. 

Happy Holidays!

1.  Pantone or Spot Colors

Consumer research has shown that accurate color reproduction is by far the most common problem throughout the printing industry.  The biggest culprit is usually the presence of “Pantone” or “spot” colors in your business card design files.  These are typically highly customized colors that fall outside of the industry-standard CMYK 4-color printing process. 

CMYK is a process whereby thousands of colors can be created by mixing various percentages of cyan (“C”), magenta (“M”), yellow (“Y”) and black (“K”).  NexCards.com, as well as the VAST majority of printers in the market today, utilizes a CMYK process that is not compatible with spot colors. 

A color shift often occurs when a CMYK business card printer attempts to print a spot color.  Stick with CMYK colors, or if you absolutely must have Pantone colors on your cards, attempt to locate a printing company that specializes in this.

2.  Black Backgrounds

A business card with a black background, if not set up properly, can turn out gray, blotchy, or over-saturated.  Luckily, this problem has an easy solution – simply convert the black background within your design file to a “rich black.”  Rich black appears the same as any other black, but it is much better for printing purposes.

A black background consisting of 100% black (C=0%, M=0%, Y=0%, K=100%) will most likely produce unexpected results.  Instead, utilize a rich black, which incorporates other CMYK percentages into the mix.  Our preferred CMYK mix for rich black is C=40%, M=30%, Y=20%, and K=100%.

3.  Borders

Artwork with borders is generally not recommended because a slight shift could occur during the trimming process.  This could result in uneven or off-centered border lines. 

This shifting possibility is an industry-accepted standard so basically, any artwork containing borders is a bit of a gamble.  If you don’t like to gamble, remove the border from your custom business card files.

4.  Too Many Enhancement Features

Spot UV, embossing, foil stamping, scoring, perforation, and other bells and whistles fall into the “enhancement feature” bucket.  Putting more than one of these features on a single card can cause flaws.  Spot UV could bubble, foil could flake, or embossing could become fuzzy.  It simply puts too much stress on the card stock.  Always stick with a single enhancement, my favorite of which is spot UV.

5.  Hidden File Problems

Pay careful attention to the printer’s file specs.  Here at NexCards.com, we check every single file that is uploaded to confirm that everything is in-spec and print-ready, but I’m sure there are plenty of printers out there who don’t bother. 

Hidden problems include things such as transparencies, overprint, and embedded fonts.  No matter where you go to have your business cards printed, always flatten your files, turn off overprint, and outline any embedded fonts.

Conclusion

Hiring a business card printer (especially us!) for your custom business cards is an excellent idea, and following my advice will eliminate 99% of any and all potential problems that might creep up during the production process.

Generally speaking, your business card stock options can be broadly segregated into 3 categories: paper stock, card stock, and other stock.

Paper, or “matte,” stock is always the least expensive and lowest quality option. It stands to reason that paper cannot be as durable, elegant, or “awe-inspiring” as the other 2 types. Paper stock is generally the most common business card medium out there, but that is mostly due to the fact that it is by far the cheapest option. The major downside is that this cheapness applies to the look and feel as well as the price, and utilizing bottom-of-the-barrel matte business cards can be expected to generate little more than a “ho-hum” first impression among clients and customers.

A much better option is actual card stock. Simplistically, this stock is akin to cardboard as opposed to paper, and thus by default can be expected to last longer and generate a higher perception of quality. Card stocks come in a variety of flavors such as glossy UV, silk, ivory, and synthetic materials.

Glossy business cards are usually the least expensive option. This option is appropriate for small businesses on tight budgets, and their shiny coating helps them stand out from traditional paper stocks. The primary downside is that glossy stock is not writable, and is prone to fingerprinting and glare.

On the other end of the spectrum, probably the highest quality card stock is silk. Silk business cards are non-glossy so they are fully writable and are not prone to finger smudges like glossy business cards. Also, this card stock is silky smooth, possessing an almost nylon-like look and feel. Silk business cards are definitely unique and are appropriate for businesses looking to exude class and elegance. And, while more expensive than glossy business cards, silk business cards are still very cost-effective.

The final category, “other stock,” encompasses “super premium” options like metal business cards, plastic business cards, translucent poly frost business cards, and magnetic business cards.

Of course a metal business card or plastic business card will wow your clients, but these tend to be at least triple the cost of any other type of card. Magnetic cards are useful because they have a functional purpose that will ensure a longer “shelf-life” once given to clients, but they too tend to be on the pricey side.

The product that represents the best compromise between uniqueness and cost is probably translucent poly frost cards. The thin plastic stock coupled with the inherent translucency offers class and elegance, and is typically priced similarly to standard card stocks.

To sum it all up, stay away from paper stocks unless you do not care about your customers’ perception of you and your company. If you are looking for an elegant business card at a reasonable price, opt for silk business cards. If you are looking for extreme uniqueness at a reasonable price, opt for translucent poly frost plastic business cards.

This product is so new that it was only added to the website yesterday. Please view the product page for more details, or you fill out our custom quote form for more specifics.

For now, the Poly Frost Business Cards are priced at the same level as our Luxury Business Cards. However, since this is a new launch, the specific pricing is subject to change at some point down the road.

When creating your poly frost plastic card design file, note that any white color areas will NOT get printed with white ink – the white areas will be completely translucent. So for example, if you want your card’s background to be “see-through,” the background in your file should be 100% white (C = 0, M = 0, Y = 0, K = 0). Please also remember that these are translucent business cards, and therefore we can only accommodate artwork on one side of the card.

Please be on the lookout for our press release! Also, we are currently working on the ability to add spot UV to this cardstock, so stay tuned!