Choosing the right stock is foundational.
Your business is unique and deserves special attention. With unique card attributes that include Clear, Colored, and Split Core, now the possibilities are endless. These specialty elements give you the ability to create complex layering or a mood that’s just perfect for a unique audience or special event.
The beauty of clear
When designing with clear core material, we have a world of techniques available to play with degrees of opacity, light and shadow, depth and dimension.
- Opaque elements printed on the front surface cast shadows on the opaque elements mirror-printed on the back surface
- Complex layering creates the effect of a three-dimensional scene
- Specialty finishes and print techniques create the illusion of ice or frost
- Transparent inks reveal the fascinating electronics hidden inside an RFID card
With the rich experience of our design & innovation team and with the strength of PLI’s production platform, you’ll be able to use your clear card to tell a story that is playful, sophisticated, or chilly as snow. Let PLI’s design and production experts make the complex look simple.
Gaining the edge with color
The front and back surfaces of a standard CR80 card make up about 98% of the total surface area of the card. The remaining 2% exists on the slim perimeter edge surfaces of the card. You wouldn’t imagine that adding color to this seemingly insignificant 2% would impact consumer behavior and drive card usage, but it DOES!
In the payment card space, the term “top of wallet” refers to the payment method that is a consumer’s favorite “go to” when spending. In a physical wallet, top of wallet refers to a consumer’s top card choice. The thing is – what banks discovered years ago is that, all other things being equal, consumers tend to favor cards in their wallet that have a colored edge. Think for a moment about the last time you searched through your wallet for a card. Do you see how a colored edge makes it easier to distinguish one card from all the others? …When viewed, not unironically, from the TOP of the wallet.
In addition to standard and custom opaque colors, we can provide metallic colors and tinted transparent. And for mind-blowing card edges and stamped elements that glow as if electric, we offer Edge-Glow PVC in a variety of fluorescent shades.
Looking for a card that boasts both a full-face foil front and a colored core material? No problem! Because we have in-house foil mounting capability, we will mount your choice of foil to your choice in base colored core, without lengthy turn times and hefty minimum orders.
Showcase your brand with split-core
By “split-core” we refer to the process of combining different sheet opacities or colors to open up design possibilities. For instance, combine a clear front sheet with an opaque back sheet, and you will double the number of print surfaces from two to four. Perhaps you decide to use a front clear layer to “encase” design elements “under glass.” Perhaps we use additional print surfaces to create interesting layering effects. Combine two red sheets with a single white sheet sandwiched in-between, and you achieve a candy-cane edge effect. Combine two white sheets with a single black sheet sandwiched in-between to boost the opacity of your card overall without sacrificing brightness.
Split-core gives new meaning to the idea of positioning your brand “front-and-center.”
PLI. We use our experience to make life’s experiences better.
Contact PLI for marketing solutions tailored to your needs.
PLI delivers on the effective translation of real client needs and ideas into unique and relevant finished gifts, loyalty, access, ticketing, and event products that people love.