Business Card Manufacturing Options

Manufacturing options are another important factor for the final appearance of your business card and in how your brand is perceived. This page provides an overview of your manufacturing options from which you need to choose the ones that best suit your brand and at the same time clarify details necessary for your design. The pevious page of our guide covers preparing business card content.

How does knowing manufacturing options help you?

The manufacturing options you choose should match your content choices. For example, if you wanted to use photos in your design, you likely want a glossy finish for your business card. A glossy finish makes colors seem more saturated and brilliant.

Secondly, the manufacturing options you choose should match your design. For example, if you wanted an environmental design, you likely want recycled paper for your business card. The material can support your message.

Lastly, when you search for a printing service and browse respective websites, knowing manufacturing options helps you make informed decisions. It's not trivial to decide whether 130lb paper stock, or 14pt cover is a better choice.

Main Section

So, lets start with going through the manufacturing options. We have further broken down the topic into three options category groups: material options, printing technology options and additional processes options. Despite this base structure, we picked "shape" and "size" as the first two matters of discussion because of their significance. These two options categories would normally be discussed towards the end because the cutting process belongs to the additional processes options category group.

Shape

When it comes to business card shapes, there are almost no limitations. You can distinguish between standard shapes and individual shapes. By standard shapes we understand the shapes for which printing services provide template files. By individual shapes we understand the shapes for which you would provide a shape file. Not all printing services offer an individual shape option for your business card. Using an individual shape is likely pricy.

The most common standard shape [family] is a rectangle. If you choose a rectangle shape, you also get the option of rounded corners. In regard to the rectangle shape, the non-square rectangle shape [oblong] is more popular than the square shape. Choosing the oblong shape opens up the option of layout orientation - landscape or portrait - for your design. Other standard shapes, e.g. circular shapes, are largly vendor specific.

Size

Size is an options category related to shape and, as mentioned above, also a result of the cutting process. The standard business card size in the U.S. and Canada is 3.5" x 2" [88.9mm x 50.8mm] but there are different standard business card sizes around the world. For example, the standard business card size in China is 90mm x 54mm [3.543" x 2.126"] and in Europe it is 85mm x 55mm [3.346" x 2.165"]. In comparison, the standard size of a credit card is 3.370" x 2.125" [85.60mm x 53.98mm] plus/minus tolerances. Other business card sizes are either vendor specific or determined by an individual shape file.

A special option related to the shape and size properties is a folded business card. With a folded business card you can preserve a standard shape and size and at the same time double your design space.
A standard shape and size is important for owners of wallets, business card holders and business card organizers. Keep in mind that it gets more difficult to carry, store and organize buisness cards if you deviate from standards.

Material Options

After we covered your options resulting from shape and size properties, we now want to begin with our first options category group: material options. In regard to business card material we can distinguish between paper materials and non-paper materials. Non-paper materials include options such as plastic, metal, wood and glas. We are not going to further explore these materials. After all, if you choose that type of material, you are probably an expert on it anyways. In our guide we focus on paper materials.

Professional Printing Paper Terminology

We would like to clarify some professional printing paper terms before we begin with talking about your paper options. In general, paper is called paper stock. Thicker paper stock is called card stock. There are also terms for paper stocks derived from book printing. The equivalent for card stock is called cover stock: a thicker paper stock for a book's cover. Regular paper stock is called text stock or book stock: a paper stock for printing the book's text.

Paper Stock Options

All right, so our next options category is paper stock. How can you choose the right paper stock for your business card? This is not a trivial task because you need to factor in several paper stock attributes. To help you better understand and evaluate these attributes, we are going to discuss relevant paper stock properties: base material, texture, coating, weight, thickness and color.

Paper Stock Base Material

Common base materials are regular paper stock from wood pulp, recycled paper stock, kraft paper stock and cotton paper stock. In contrast to regular paper stock, recycled paper stock is made from used paper and in general has gray or brown color. Kraft paper stock is a robust, brown paper stock which is made with the kraft process. Cotton paper stock is made from cotton fibers and has a natural white color. It is longer lasting because it is naturally acid-free and therefore often used for important documents.

Paper Stock Texture

What is paper stock texture? It is a certain surface structure achieved by a certain manufacturing method resulting in visual and tactile effects. Texture options for paper stocks can be classified as "smooth" or "embossed" and possibly ordered by smoothness.

Examples for the smooth texture category are "smooth" and "vellum/eggshell". Vellum texture should not be mixed up with vellum paper [transparancy].
Examples for the embossed texture category are "linen" and "laid". Linen texture should not be mixed up with linen paper which is made from flax fibers. Laid texture should not be mixed up with laid paper which is the result of an ancient manufacturing method.

Paper Stock Coating

Our next paper stock property is coating. Coating adds a finishing layer that makes a paper stock's surface smoother and also reduces a paper stock's ink absorbency. The reduced ink absorbency has two effects: For one, more ink stays visible and therefore printed colors appear more saturated. Two, ink is not spreading out as much and therefore prints appear sharper. Coating can create even more visual and tactile effects. The most recognized visual effect being gloss in various degrees. The glossier a paper stock's surface, the more light is being reflected and the more colors appear brilliant.

There are typically four paper stock coating options for your business card: uncoated, matte, semi-gloss and gloss. An uncoated paper stock is a paper stock to which no coating has been applied. This preserves a natural look and values the material for what it is. The advantage of uncoated paper stock is that it's excellent to write on with either pencil or ballpoint pen. Disadvantages being that your prints lack saturation [further think contrast] and some sharpness. Uncoated paper stocks work well with text heavy designs and for designs that have a lower color saturation strategy from the beginning [our choice].

Matte paper stock has coating with a very low degree of gloss. The surface of matte paper stock is smoother than that of uncoated paper stock. Matte coating also results in increased color saturation and print sharpness. On the downside, you can not write well on matte paper stock. You might be able to write on it carefully with a ballpoint pen but keep in mind that you then need to let the ink dry for a longer period of time to prevent smearing. Matte coating is for designs that ask for a certain color print quality but less likely include photos.
Soft touch coating is a special coating that fits into the matte coating category [though the effect is more commonly achieved with lamination]. The surface of paper stock with soft touch coating is comparable to suede. Soft and somewhat rubbery to touch, visually deep matte.

Semi-Gloss paper stock has the advantageous properties of matte paper stock and additionally has a higher degree of gloss. The higher amount of reflected light make colors appear more brilliant. It does not have the somewhat rubbery surface of gloss paper stock. Many people consider semi-gloss paper stock the ideal choice for designs with photos because it is the perfect in-between of matte and gloss paper stock. But it does have its drawbacks. You do see more reflections if you are near direct light sources. Also, it is again a step harder to write on. At this point you would want to use a permanent marker. Some vendors use special names such as luster, silk/satin, or pearl for semi-gloss paper stock.
Pearlescent coating is a special coating which fits into the semi-gloss coating category. Its specialty is adding a metallic shimmer to your prints.

Gloss paper stock is the paper stock with the highest degree of gloss. Some vendors distinguish between gloss and high-gloss paper stock, others just use the term high-gloss because of the highest degree of gloss compared to the other gloss categories. This type of paper stock is best known from the covers of high fashion magazines. The shiny surface grabs the attention of the viewer and makes the printed piece stand out from the masses. This paper stock has the highest color brilliance and makes scenes of photographs appear more real. Like all paper stocks, gloss paper stock has its disadvantages. Its properties cause the highest amount of reflections making reading text less comfortable. Fingerprints can be seen easily and some poeple do not like the surface's rubbery feel. This paper stock is best for designs with photos, of bold and luxurious brands.

Paper Stock Weight

Weight is another important paper stock property. People relate the weight of your business card to value and professionalism of your brand. This is because people know that heavier paper stocks are more expensive. People also know that average office printers can only print on papers of up to a certain weight. To print on heavier papers you need professional printers.

Your lesson could be simple: choose the heavier paper the more you want to convey value and professionalism. Unfortunately it's not that simple to compare paper stocks by weight. The weight of paper stocks is mostly given in pounds. The tricky part is how the weight of paper stocks is measured. Paper stocks are weighed in stacks of 500 sheets but the sheet size of different types of paper stocks differs. Text paper stock sheets are larger than cover paper stock sheets when measured. As a result, paper stocks of two business cards could have the same weight in pounds but clearly the business card that is made with cover paper stock is heavier than the one made with text paper stock.

The solution to this problem is to use a different unit of measurement with which you can compare all types of paper stocks and to convert from pounds to this new unit. The most popular one is "gsm" which stands for gram[s] per square meter. With this unit all paper types can be compared easily. We prepared a conversion table below so you can easily look up the conversion for cover paper stocks and text paper stocks.

We would also like to present the following weight categories for business card paper stock as a simple rule of thumb. Note that these reflect our personal opinion.

 < 275gsm: insubstantial
275 - 349gsm: acceptable
 >= 350gsm: excellent

Paper Stock Thickness

Thickness is our next paper stock property. Thickness is also an indicator for the sturdiness of the final print product, but probably less significant than weight.

What could be reference points for developing a sense of paper stock thickness?

Paper stock thickness is measured in points [pt] and one point equals to one thousandth of an inch.

1 pt = 0.001 inch

One reference point could be that 1/64th of an inch equals to 0.015625 inch, or rouphly 16pt.

We would also like to share four distinct thickness ranges that reflect our personal opinion as another reference point.

<= 14pt = thin
15-16pt = medium
17-21pt = thick
>= 22pt = extra thick

If you want to use paper stock thickness to compare printing service offers, pay attention to whether a thickness measure refers to only the paper stock or to the final product which may include finish layers.

Paper Stock Color

Our last paper stock property is color. Printing services offer paper stocks with different kinds of white in terms of brightness, hue and saturation. In contrast to "white" paper stocks, printing services might also offer non-white, colored paper stocks.

Printing Technology Options

We now move on to the options category group "printing technology". Our first printing technology options group is print side. You can choose to print on only one side (simplex), or on both sides (duplex). Printing on only one side is the cheaper option.

The next printing technology option is printing with special inks, also called spot colors. One application of a spot color is printing a white underlayer on dark paper. Other types of spot color include neon or metallic inks. Finally spot colors also include system colors such as PANTONE® colors. Each spot color increases the printing cost.

Our last printing technology option is to print more than one design in one print job. This option requires digital printing technology rather than offset printing technology. The amount of different designs you can print in one print job is dependent on the printing service.

Additional Processes Options

After we have discussed printing technology options, we can now look into additional processes options. Additional processes options include options for protective finishes such as aqueous coating, UV coating and lamination. Protective finishes protect your business card from physical harm, dirt, uv light and fluids. Their visual and tactile effects are similar to paper stock coatings as discussed above.

Aqueous coating is a thin, fast-drying, water-based liquid that offers moderate protection and more subtle visual and tactile effects compared to uv coating or lamination. But it's also the least expensive. UV coating is a thicker liquid that has to be dried under uv light and which has advanced protection and effect abilites. Lamination uses a thin plastic foil that provides the highest protection level. But the plastic foil may also be perceived as a value downgrade if used with a high quality paper stock.

After discussing protective finish options, we are now moving on to processes that allow adding additional visual and tactile effects. The first one is spot UV coating. This option allows you to specify areas to which glossy coating is applied. It means you can create a contrasting effect between non-glossy and glossy areas in your design. The highlighted parts particularly draw the viewer's attention.

Another additional process that adds visual and tactile effects is foil stamping. This process heat-bonds decorative foil onto specified areas of your business card. The foil can mimic various looks but the most common is the look of precious metals such as silver and gold. Foil stamping allows you to convey elegance, luxury or a material relation as brand attributes.

To further increase the tactile effect, raised spot UV coating and raised foil stamping exist.

Conclusion

You need to figure out what manufacturing options you want for your business card because your decisions will determine necessary requirements for your design. This page provides an overview of the manufacturing options to help you make these decisions systematically. We grouped the options into three categories: "Material Options", "Printing Technology Options" and "Additional Processes Options". When you are ready, you can move on to design your business card.