Card Examples

Select a card type to see examples

Almost everything else follows from this, and it is the distinction that catches most people out because both processes produce excellent cards that look nothing like each other.

Full colour (CMYK) prints your design the way a photograph prints. Gradients, photographs, skin tones, subtle brand colours and fine detail all reproduce accurately, on both sides, at no extra cost for the second side. This is what our white, biodegradable, EcoTough, plastic-free board, RFID, combo, key tag and event pass products use. If there is a photograph anywhere in your design, this is the route.

Hot foil stamps metallic foils and vivid pigment colours onto the card under heat and pressure. It produces flat, solid, genuinely opaque colour with a shine that ink cannot imitate — which is exactly what you need on a base that is not white. Our metallic, satin black and frosted translucent cards are all hot foil. The trade-off is real: photographs, gradients and halftones will not reproduce, and you work in a limited number of colours. For logos, type and bold graphic designs the results are far better than ink would be.

Put simply: if your design contains a photograph, choose full colour. If your design is a logo and type and you want the card itself to be part of the effect, choose hot foil.

Standard PVC at 760 microns is the default for most work — the same material and thickness as a bank card, with the print sealed beneath the surface so it cannot scratch or fade.

Biodegradable at 800 microns prints, encodes and feels exactly like standard PVC, so nothing downstream has to change. It suits schemes where cards are renewed annually and old ones are thrown away.

EcoTough at 360 microns is a PVC-free, laminate-free synthetic from 20% recycled material. It is waterproof, tear resistant, and the only card we print that you can write on with an ordinary pen anywhere on its surface. Production is 5 working days rather than the usual 7.

Plastic-free board at 620 microns contains no plastic at all. Barcodes, QR codes and numbering all work; magnetic stripes and chips do not, which is the one thing to check before choosing it.

RFID cards at 820 microns carry a chip and antenna for contactless access. The chip has to match your existing readers, and they are supplied unencoded for you to write.

Most cards here are the standard 86 x 54mm with rounded corners, which is bank card size and fits every wallet, card holder and reader designed for one. Three products deliberately are not.

Key fob cards are 54 x 29mm with a 4mm keyring hole — about a third of a card's area, for schemes where a customer arrives with keys in hand rather than a wallet out. Combo cards are an 86 x 54mm card with a 54 x 29mm key tag joined to it that snaps apart, so one item gives someone both. Event passes are 70 x 100mm and portrait, because a pass is worn and read by somebody else across a barrier rather than carried and read at arm's length.

On thickness, from thinnest to thickest: EcoTough 360 microns, plastic-free board 620, combo cards and event passes 680, standard PVC and key fobs 760, biodegradable 800, RFID 820. Anything in the 680–820 range feels like a proper card in the hand; 360 is noticeably lighter and more flexible, which suits badges and high-volume issue.

Minimum order across the range is 25, free UK delivery is included, every card is made here in England, and we email a free photorealistic proof before anything is printed. If you are still unsure which type fits, tell us what the card has to do and we will point you at the right one.