Custom Business Cards & Premium Print Marketing

Technical Printing & Business Card FAQs

Q: How do I choose the best business card for my budget?

A: If you are on a tight budget, our Standard 16pt Business Cards provide excellent rigidity and professional appeal at a highly economical price point. For mid-range budgets, Linen or Suede cards offer a significant tactile upgrade. If budget is not a constraint, ultra-thick Painted Edge or solid 30-mil Plastic cards are the ultimate luxury choice.

Q: Do you offer free business card design services?

A: Yes! We understand that not everyone is a graphic designer. Our expert prepress team can help create a professional business card design for you absolutely free of charge. Simply reach out to our team with your logo and details, or use our free online Designer Studio to customize hundreds of ready-made templates.

Q: What are common design mistakes to avoid on a business card?

A: The most common mistake is placing very thin borders close to the card's edge. Because commercial trimming can shift up to 1/16th of an inch, thin borders can appear visually uneven after cutting. We also recommend avoiding fonts smaller than 7pt for legibility, and always designing in CMYK color mode rather than RGB to prevent color shifting when printed.

Q: Should I use a glossy or matte finish?

A: It depends on your brand and usage. Glossy UV coatings make colors pop and are great for cards with vibrant photography. However, you cannot easily write on a high-gloss surface. Matte and Suede finishes offer a more subdued, elegant look, do not show fingerprints, and are easy to write on with a standard pen.

Q: What is the standard size of a business card in the US?

A: The standard North American business card size is exactly 3.5 inches by 2 inches (88.9 mm x 50.8 mm). When submitting a design file for printing, you must include an 0.125" bleed, making the final un-trimmed digital file size 3.625" x 2.125".

Q: What does "PT" mean in paper thickness?

A: "PT" stands for Point, a unit of measurement used in the US printing industry to describe the caliper (thickness) of paper stock. One point equals 0.001 inches. Therefore, a 16pt business card is 0.016 inches thick. The higher the PT, the thicker and more rigid the card.

Q: What is the difference between CMYK and RGB color spaces?

A: RGB (Red, Green, Blue) is an additive color model used for digital screens. CMYK (Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, Key/Black) is a subtractive color model used in commercial offset printing. Always design your business cards in CMYK mode to ensure the printed colors match what you intended, as RGB colors often appear much brighter on a monitor than they can be printed with actual ink.

Q: What is a "bleed" in printing?

A: A bleed is printing that goes beyond the edge of where the sheet will be trimmed. It gives the printer a small margin of error when cutting the cards down to their final 3.5" x 2" size. Without a bleed, minor shifts in the cutting blade could result in thin, unprofessional white borders around the edge of your card.

Q: Are plastic business cards standard credit card size?

A: No, standard plastic business cards follow the traditional 3.5" x 2" sizing, which is slightly different than the ISO 7810 ID-1 credit card standard (3.37" x 2.125")^[4]. However, our 30-mil plastic cards share the exact same thickness and extreme durability as a standard credit card.

Q: Do you review my AI or Canva exported design before printing?

A: Absolutely. If you designed your card using Canva, Photoshop, or generated ideas via AI (like Midjourney or ChatGPT), our prepress experts manually review the file. We check for proper CMYK color mapping, minimum 300 DPI resolution, and correct bleed areas before sending anything to the press.