Card Printing Illustrated - No Jargon!
By: Camille Meehan - 12/12/2014

My last post discussed the most popular options for <a href="https://posguys.com/card-printing_60/" title="Shop POSGuys Card Printing">POSGuys card printing</a>. Since there are many options available the details can be overwhelming, especially if you don’t work in the printing or point of sale technology industry. I admit (publicly and on my employer's website even…)  when I first started working at POSGuys  I was driven absolutely crazy by the point of sale jargon so I’ll try to do everyone a favor and explain the card printing options, in plain old English.
 
The first thing to understand about our cards is that they start out with black printing on white cardstock. These are always the most affordable cards because the supplies are less expensive. Think of the last time you went to a printing center to run copies.  The black and white copies are around .12 each and the color copies are around .60 each. In the printing world color = higher cost.

<em><strong>General Design Tip:</strong> It is a great idea to have a black and white version of your color logo for faxes, embroidery, saving money on printing, single color printing and more.</strong></em>

<h2>Black and White Cards</h2>

Let's start by printing a theoretical card. It shall be a gift card for my dream <i>U-Pick Food Forest</i>. First, we run the card through the printer with black ribbon <b>(ribbon ≈ ink)</b> in it. A ribbon in card printing is like ink except that where ink is liquid and soaks into the paper, the ribbon is plastic and is burned onto the card. If you are at all into crafting it is like using an iron to fix a shirt transfer to a t-shirt. The heat forces the image on your printed design to release and bond to the t-shirt. 
Similarly, each time you run a card through the printer it bonds the plastic ribbon to the card.

There is my beautiful card in black and white.

<h2>Single Color Cards</h2>

Food forests don’t have a lot of black trees so that doesn't make a lot of sense for my gift cards. Let's add color. I want some color, but my budget is tight. <i>Not much money to be made as a card printing part time farmer I’m afraid.</i> Switching from black to green will look more organic. So let's change the ink, oops I mean ribbon, to green. All the printer can print now is green. The card prints, and everything prints in green. No black, no light green, no dark green, just green.

Maybe I should print in teal instead of green… <b>teal is one color right?</b>

<i>Sadly no.</i> Manufacturers only make single color ribbons in the most commonly requested colors. Blue, Green, Red, Black, and White are often what you find. Below are examples of blue and red single color printing.

<em>(Card manufacturers if you are taking requests for new ribbon colors please make me a hot pink or a red that stays red on black cards.)</em>

<h2>Two Color Cards</h2>

Hmm well, I really want some more color and I don’t want everything to be the same. Can I add a color to black?

Sure! We can run the card through the printer twice. Once for the black printing and then a second time to print a different color. Here are two possible options for two color printing.

<h2>Full Color Cards</h2>

Hm, what I really want is for everything to be in color. I want the vegetables to pop out of the tree!

Sounds like what you need is full color printing. Full color printing is very popular and so the printers have special ribbons which include three base colors (Cyan, Magenta, Yellow) plus black. The printer takes its time and prints the card using the four different colored sections of the ribbon instead of passing the card through the printer four different times. This is similar to an inkjet printer or laser printer which also uses Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and blacK (CMYK) to reproduce an image in full color. What a pain when one color runs out eh?

<h2>Card Stock Colors</h2>

The final trick is cardstock color. Cardstock otherwise known as blank plastic card material is just another form of paper to us. Just as the paper comes in different colors, so too does cardstock.  When you want your ad to get noticed you print on fluorescent green or pink paper. Same thing when printing cards. The right color can make your design ‘POP’ or really stand out on a shelf. As of December 2014 we carry the popular colors below.

I think, if I owned a U-Pick Food Forest then I would probably stick to paper gift certificates. They aren’t as effective from a money making standpoint but they compost fantastic! If I HAD to make a choice on card stock I would definitely go with this for a final direction. <a href="http://posguys.com/card-printing_60/Green-Gift-Cards_1049/" title="Shop POSGuys Green Gift Card">Recycled card stock with green printing.</a> Very nice.

I hope this post sheds some light on <a href="https://posguys.com/card-printing_60/" title="Shop POSGuys Card Printing">card printing</a>. :D Thanks for reading, <b>it's been fun.</b>
<br><br><br>
<i>Camille Meehan, POSLady since 2011, is the Mistress of Card Printing at POSGuys.com. She rules over the card printers with an iron fist, a BA in design, and over seven years print/design experience. Note: Camille loves to garden but her little plot is not a food forest... yet!</i>

Card Printing Illustrated - No Jargon! By: Camille Meehan - 12/12/2014

Recent Posts By Camille Meehan

Card Printing Illustrated - No Jargon!
By: Camille Meehan - 12/12/2014