How to Design a Membership Card

Purpose and Audience

Start by considering what the card is for and who will be receiving it. A card for exclusive club members is a different object from a card for a loyalty programme, and the audience should guide the overall design and the messaging on it.

Brand Consistency

Your membership card should reflect your brand identity: colours, fonts and imagery that align with your brand guidelines. Consistency across all your materials, the membership card included, is what makes the brand recognisable rather than merely present.

Essential Information

Include only the most critical information, to avoid clutter. That typically means:

• Member’s name.
• Membership ID or number.
• Membership level or status.
• Expiry date.
• Your website or contact details.

Keep it clean. If you are tempted to cram in more, move the secondary information to the back of the card instead. Individual names, numbers and expiry dates can all be printed differently on every card — see personalisation and variable data.

Typography

Choose fonts that are readable and professional, and use no more than two. Create hierarchy with variations in weight and size rather than with a third typeface. Sans-serif fonts generally work best on plastic cards, as they stay legible at small sizes and reproduce cleanly in print.

As a rule of thumb, keep body text no smaller than 6pt, and make sure member names and numbers are large enough to read at a glance — someone on a door has a second or two to check a card, not a minute.

Before you send artwork Outline all fonts, also called converting to curves. If we do not have your font installed, text may reflow or be substituted.

Colour

Select colours that reflect your brand, and make sure there is strong contrast between text and background — light text on a dark ground or the reverse. Avoid placing small text over busy or patterned backgrounds.

Before you send artwork Supply everything in CMYK colour mode, not RGB. RGB colours are for screens and will shift when converted to print. If you are designing in Illustrator or Photoshop, set the document to CMYK from the outset — our CMYK guide goes into more detail.

Logo, Images and Graphics

Incorporate your logo prominently — it acts as the visual anchor of the card. Supply it as a vector file (AI, EPS or PDF) where possible, so it stays sharp at any size, and avoid stretching or distorting it to fit the layout.

Minimalist designs are popular, but a graphic or background image can make a card stand out. Any photographs or raster images must be supplied at a minimum of 600dpi at the finished print size. Low-resolution images will look blurry when printed — if it looks slightly soft on screen, it will look significantly worse on the card.

Bleed, Safe Zone and File Format

• Card size — standard CR80 plastic cards measure 86mm × 54mm, the same as a credit card.
• Bleed — extend your background colour or design 3mm beyond the card edge on all four sides, so the artwork file is set up at 92mm × 60mm. This prevents white edges appearing after cutting.
• Safe zone — keep all important content (text, logos, membership numbers) at least 3mm inside the card edge. Anything closer risks being trimmed off.
• File format — supply artwork as a high-resolution PDF, AI or EPS. We do not recommend Word documents or low-resolution JPEGs.

Full artwork specifications and downloadable templates are on our artwork guides page, and there is a worked diagram on our bleed and size page.

The Back of the Card

Don’t leave the back blank. Options include a signature strip, a magnetic stripe, sequential numbering, a barcode or QR code, or simply your contact details and website.

If you are including a magnetic stripe or signature panel, the design has to account for their standard position — our artwork guides show exactly where these sit.

Material and Finish

Solid PVC membership cards are the most durable option, and are recyclable through normal council recycling. Choose a gloss finish for a vibrant, high-impact look, or a matt finish for a more understated, premium feel — there is more on the difference on our gloss and matt page. Both are available across the full membership card range.

Proofing and Approval

Before we go to print we send you a free photorealistic email proof of your card, so you can check the design, colours and layout. Review all the text carefully — membership numbers, expiry dates, contact details — and ask a colleague to proofread it too. Once you approve the proof, we move straight to production.