Business Cards Glossary

Card Stock: Card stock is one of the most important features of any business card. Card stock, measured in pounds (# or lb.) or in points (pt.), implies thickness of the paper used for printing cards. The more points or pounds the thicker the paper. Usually paper stock of 12 pt. (100-110lb.) is needed to produce best business cards.
Note! Coating can make paper stock a little thicker.

Dimensions: Business card sizes are not the same in different countries. However, there is an international standard size 3.370" x 2.125" (85.60 x 53.98 mm), which is equal to credit card size.
In Canada and the U.S. business cards are a little bigger 3.5" x 2" (89 x 51 mm). Japanese business cards are even bigger 91 x 55 mm.

Full Color: Deciding color characteristics of your color business cards you can come across such figures 4/4 and 4/0. These numbers mean quality of colorful printing on both sides of a business card (first number shows color of the front of a card, the second one indicate color characteristics of the back.) Number four means full color printing (on a CMYK: cyan, magenta, yellow, and black printer), number one means black, and zero stands for blank. Consequently, a ‘four over four’ business card is full colored on both sides. A ‘four over zero’ business card has full color on the front and is blank on the back.

CMYK/RGB Color: There are two color profiles. CMYK meaning cyan, magenta, yellow, black and RGB - red, green, and blue. The majority of printing companies use CMYK printers, meanwhile most graphic programs and monitors operate using RGB profile. It is important to be attentive while designing business card layouts, since the difference between CMYK and RGB may cause wrong idea of how the design actually looks.

Two-Sided Business Cards: business cards can be either one-sided or two-sided. Two-sided business cards have certain advantages in comparison with one-sided cards, but they basically are more expensive than one-sided ones.

Raised Print: It is an optional feature that requires additional charge. A business card can be called raised if plastic powder was scattered on top of wet ink when a card was being exposed to thermography.

Coating or Lamination: To improve the durability and look of cards coating is applied. Printing companies distinguish several laminating types. They are:
Matte is the standard looking paper-finish look.
Aqueous coating add a little shine to cards but it is rather moderate.
Glossy UV coating is the most frequently applied method that provides quality glossy look to cards surface.

Proofing: Proofing is optional decision of a printing company’s customer to check out the cards design before printing whole amount. In fact proofing comes to sending .PDF or other graphic program file online to a customer. When agreed and paid printing companies can send a physical sample. If a client is satisfied with the design and agrees that design has no errors, he/she tells a printing company to print the whole amount.

Fold-Over Business Cards:  Fold-over business cards are bigger can be printed on one or both sides thus providing you twice as much space. Scored in the middle these cards can be easily folded down to the normal size.

Embossing: To highlight some areas of business cards embossing can be used. The process of embossing includes bonding metallic foils of silver, gold and other colors with a embossed business card stock.

Watermark: A watermark is made by engraving plated on the card stock. If a watermark was made you can identify your business card looking at its back side. Watermarking is possible for one-sided cards only. It is an optional feature that can happen to be very expensive.

Bleed: While printing there can be shifting of materials and errors for example stains are really difficult to anticipate. Bleed is required to ensure quality printing, with average amount of 1/8" on each of the four sides. Here, the important thing is to design in accordance with bleed, graphics should go off the page enough. As a rule most printing companies provide manual and template to help you with it.