How to Design a Loyalty Card

A well-designed loyalty card does two jobs at once: it reinforces your brand every time a customer pulls it out of their wallet, and it's functional enough that staff can actually use it. Get the design wrong and you end up with cards that look cheap, scan incorrectly, or come back from print looking nothing like you expected.

This guide covers everything you need to know before you send artwork to a printer.

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Start with the right size
The vast majority of loyalty cards are printed to CR80 size — 86mm × 54mm, which is identical to a standard bank card. This isn't arbitrary: it fits every wallet, card holder, and card slot your customers already own.

Some businesses opt for a slightly smaller CR79 size, which works with certain card holders that grip the card by the edges. Unless you have a specific reason, stick with CR80.

What to avoid:
Designing at the wrong size and then scaling the artwork up or scaling it down to fit. This distorts everything.

Set up your artwork at the correct resolution
Print is not screen. An image that looks sharp on a monitor at 72dpi will look blurry on a printed card. Loyalty card artwork should be supplied at a minimum of 300dpi at actual print size.
Vector files (AI, EPS, PDF) are ideal because they're resolution-independent — your logo will be crisp at any size. If you're working with raster images (JPEG, PNG, TIFF), make sure they're 300dpi at 85.6 × 54mm, not scaled up from a smaller file.

Common mistake:
Exporting a design from Canva at screen resolution and wondering why the printed card looks soft. Always export at 300dpi minimum, or ask your printer for a template file.

Include a bleed area
Printing isn't millimetre-perfect. Cards are printed on larger sheets and then cut down to size, and there's always a small margin of movement in the cutting process. If your background colour or design runs right to the edge of the card, you need to extend it slightly beyond the card edge — this extension is called the bleed.

Standard bleed for plastic card printing is 3mm on all sides. So your artwork file should be 92mm × 60mm, not 86 × 54mm.
If you don't include bleed and your background is a solid colour or pattern, you may end up with a thin white border on one or more edges. It looks unprofessional and there's nothing the printer can do about it once the cards are cut.

Keep critical content away from the edges
The flip side of bleed: anything you don't want cut off — your logo, your business name, any text — should sit at least 3mm inside the card edge. This is called the safe zone.
Designs that push logos or text right to the edge look precarious on screen and often get partially cropped in print.

Think about where the functional elements go
If your loyalty card includes any of the following, their position matters:

Stamp boxes — if you're doing a stamp-based scheme (e.g. collect 10, get 1 free), the boxes need to be large enough to stamp clearly and spaced so they don't bleed into each other. Typical stamp circles are 10–12mm diameter.

Barcodes — need white space around them (known as the quiet zone) or scanners won't read them. Don't run other design elements up to the barcode edge. Barcodes also need sufficient contrast — dark bars on a light background. Never print a barcode on a dark card without inverting it to a light barcode on dark, and test the scan before ordering in bulk.

QR codes — same quiet zone rules apply. Minimum print size is around 20 × 20mm for reliable scanning. Smaller than that and cheap phone cameras will struggle.

Magnetic stripe — if you're having a mag stripe added, it runs along the top of the back of the card (when held horizontally). Don't put design elements there.

Signature strip — sits below the mag stripe on the back. Leave it clear of graphics.

Choose your finish before you design
This matters more than most people expect. Your finish affects how the final card looks and feels — and it affects your colour choices.
High Gloss — vivid, high-shine finish. Colours look punchy and saturated. Best for bold, colourful designs.
Premium Matt — flat, premium feel. Slightly softer on colour reproduction. Better for minimal, sophisticated designs. Shows fingerprints more than gloss. Design for the finish you've chosen. A design that looks striking in gloss can look washed-out in matt if the colours aren't adjusted.

Use CMYK, not RGB
Screens display colour using RGB (red, green, blue). Printers use CMYK (cyan, magenta, yellow, black). The two colour spaces don't match perfectly, and some colours — particularly vivid blues, oranges, and greens — shift noticeably when converted.

Set your design software to CMYK mode from the start. If you're handed a logo in RGB, convert it before building your card design around it. If there's a brand colour that must be exact, specify it as a Pantone reference and ask your printer whether they can match to it.

The back of the card
A lot of businesses put all their effort into the front and treat the back as an afterthought. That's a missed opportunity.
The back is a good place for:

Your website or social media handle

Terms and conditions for the loyalty scheme (brief, readable)

A prompt to download your app, if you have one

The barcode or QR code, if you want the front completely clean

Keep it uncluttered. A busy back looks amateur.

Get a proof before you commit
Any reputable card printer will send you a visual proof before going to press. Look at it on screen but also print it out at actual size if you can — A4 paper, scissors, and a ruler. Hold it. See how it feels to look at.

Things to check on the proof:

Does the logo look right at this size?
Is any text too small to read easily?
Are the stamp boxes the right size?
Does the barcode have adequate quiet zone?
Is the business name spelled correctly?

Obvious point, but artwork errors that get approved on the proof are your responsibility, not the printer's.

Common mistakes, summarised
- Artwork supplied at screen resolution (72dpi) instead of print resolution (300dpi)
- No bleed — thin white borders after cutting
- RGB colour mode — colours shift on conversion to CMYK
- Logo or text in the cut zone — partially cropped cards
- Barcode too close to other elements — fails to scan
- Designing for gloss and printing in matt without adjusting colours

Ready to print?
If you want to take the guesswork out of it, we offer a design service from £20+VAT — or if you already have artwork ready, get a quote here and we'll turn around a proof usually within an hour. We print loyalty cards in England, with free UK delivery and no minimum order on most card types.