1. Although the home page will remain basically the same,  the user who chooses to click any product’s “Start Now” button will be taken to a brand new interface. Here the user can either upload their current business card design, start a new design from scratch in the design studio, or design a new card from a gallery of hundreds of category relevant templates. The choice is yours!
2. Wile we’ve carved out an impressive niche in premium business cards, we’ve had numerous queries for other related printed products like envelopes, letterheads, postcards, sell sheets, brochures and the like. So you’ll be presented with these products and more. Again, you can upload a design, start from scratch in our design studio or use one of our templates as a starting point.
3. You’ll be asked to sign in before you purchase a card product. This way, you can access your account at any time to see what you’ve ordered and when. Best of all, your designs will be available to re-order or to revise and re-order. It couldn’t be easier!

If there is a product or feature you want to see, just blog it here. We’ll be giving more details as the Nexcards re-lunch approaches.

Alas, this is impossible in most situations. We use a very large volume printer facility that is almost entirely automated. Once in the system (and this happens very quickly from the time the order is sent in) there is no room for changes of any type. This “no interference” policy keeps the line constantly moving through the prep and printing stages to the benefit of everyone.

The estimate described on each card choice for turn-around processing is based on experience and is pretty accurate. But it is an estimate, not a guarantee. In 95% of the orders we can hit this date or a day or two before.

What we can control is the shipping method because this does not involve tampering with the assembly line. If it would help you, we can upgrade your shipping from ground to 2 day or even overnight. We can get costs of the various options and let you know. Please let us know of your need before you order, not after the job is in production.

If you want your glossy business cards or matte business cards fast let us know before you order. We can expedite processing and shipping as long as you don’t need extra services such as UV spot, etc. We process these though an alternate source that does have some flexibility in expediting a particular order. That, combined with faster shipping, may well meet your deadline.

If you’re in a hurry, don’t forget our Design-It-Online Express Business Cards. Here you can get your finished business cards delivered in just a few days after you complete your design. Now that’s fast!

There are 2 primary ways to facilitate a business card fold: perforation and scoring.

A perforation is a series of small holes on a sheet of paper so that a section can tear easily over a straight line.  This is a common attribute of event tickets, business reply cards, notebook paper, and hundreds of other items regularly used in our society.

A score, on the other hand, is a crease applied to a sheet made of a heavy stock paper to eliminate cracking and to facilitate a straight and accurate fold.  Pick up any greeting card, and you will see scoring.

Folded business cards are typically printed on a 4” x 3.5” card stock.  The 4” side is folded in half along the scored or perforated line, leaving you with a standard 2” x 3.5” business card when folded.  Scoring or perforation typically works best on silk business cards and glossy business cards.

The main benefit of this type of business card is that it offers additional “marketing space” for your card.  In other words, instead of the standard 2 sides (front and back), you now have 4 sides to work with – double the marketing space.  You could leverage this additional space for any number of creative purposes – for example, including a map to your business, your company mission, or even an appointment card.

The other benefit is that folded business cards are extremely unique, and as such will help your business cards stand out from the masses.  Unique business cards are more likely to be retained by customers and clients, even if just for novelty reasons.

Folded silk business cards also allow for additional enhancements, like spot UV, foil stamping, and embossing, any of which will serve to dramatically embellish your folded business card’s uniqueness and stickiness even more.

So there you have it – a quick and dirty overview of folded business cards.  To sum it up, the folding is usually done on silk business cards or glossy business cards, utilizing either perforation or scoring.

Till next time…

So, what exactly is a silk business card?  Well, the silky coating is accomplished via silk-lamination, and this laminate coating is completely unnoticeable and invisible unless you try to tear the card.  It is this lamination which gives silk business cards their uniqueness. 

For one, it makes the cards more durable.  The laminate coating makes the cards a little more difficult to tear, and helps minimize the possibility of corners and edges getting frayed.  Additionally, the silk lamination is completely writable, meaning you can write on the card with pens, pencils, and markers with ease. 

Another key attribute of silk cards is that they are non-glossy, which eliminates the common problems associated with glossy business cards such as fingerprinting, streaks, smudges, and the cards sticking together.  Non-shiny silk lamination eliminates these types of problems.

Additionally, the non-shiny look is more upscale and elegant.  Many people correctly perceive glossy UV business cards to be a relatively low end business card product.  The non-shiny look seems to be “in” these days, which positively influences people’s perception of quality. 

Finally, the durability and composition of the silk cardstock make it the best choice for business card enhancement features like spot UV, embossing, and foil stamping. 

Spot UV business cards in particular offer a unique look, as the areas treated with the spot UV are slightly raised and shiny compared to the non-shiny silk cardstock.  Thus, the treated areas “jump off the page” and provide a striking visual impact.  It would not be possible to produce spot UV business cards on an inherently glossy cardstock.

Embossing also works better on silk business cards.  Embossing is the process of raising certain design elements by virtue of them getting “pushed through” from the backside.  The net effect is similar to the account number on a standard credit card, where the numbers are raised on the front and recessed on the back.  As you can probably guess, embossing is a delicate process that puts much stress on the cardstock, and thus is a more appropriate enhancement feature for durable business cards like silk.

To sum it all up, silk business cards are laminated, durable, writable, non-glossy, and support enhancement features.  Outside of metal business cards or plastic business cards, silk cards are generally considered the highest-end business cardstock in the market today.  They have an elegant look and feel, and do not have the same inconveniences as glossy business cards.

I celebrate Christmas, and it is truly my favorite time of the year.  But hey, this blog is about business cards, right?  So I thought I would combine the two topics and list 10 things you could do with your custom business cards this holiday season…

1. Include a business card with your holiday business correspondence (for example, put your business card in any Christmas cards you send to your clients).
2. Distribute your card at any and all holiday functions you happen to attend.
3. Use your glossy business cards as gift labels.
4. Print silk business cards with coupon codes in order to facilitate a holiday promotion.
5. Find places within your local mall to distribute your business cards.  You may even be able to partner with a few stores to put a stack of your cards on the checkout counter.  All malls are packed with people this time of year, so think about ways to tap into this mass of humanity.
6. If you are in a business that encourages holiday gift-giving to clients, a nice touch is to give out a small box of candies – about the diameter of a standard business card, just enough to fit a few pieces of chocolate – and use a graphic of your custom business cards as the lid.
7. If you have metal business cards, think about transforming them into Christmas tree ornaments and hand them out to clients as holiday gifts.
8. Going to a family function?  Why not descretley pass out your card to everyone in attendance? 
9. Expand your silk business cards to the size of a holiday greeting card, and mail them to clients. 
10. Use your glossy business cards as kindling to get the ‘ole Yule Log started! (ha, ha…I just had to end with some humor).

So there you have it, an imprompteu list of things to do with your custom business cards this holiday season.  Whether you have glossy business cards, silk business cards, or metal business cards, I hope you found this blog post both enjoyable and useful. 

Happy Holidays!

We are very excited about the new shopping cart functionality because it further supports our core mission to provide customers with maximum customization options. Previously, customers were forced to inquire about “fringe” business card customization options by requesting a custom quote. Now, once customers click on a custom card “buy now” button, they can clearly see all the available add-on options and their associated price points.

You can now add multiple bells and whistles to any business card product to make it as unique as you wish – including rounded corners, custom cuts (starts at 1.5 x 1.5 and goes up from there in quarter-inch increments), perforation, embossing, and foil stamping (gold, silver, red, blue or green). You can even select professional graphic design services to, for example, recreate artwork in a print-ready format or even design your entire card!

These options can be added to any business card requiring you to upload your own design file. Products include silk business cards, glossy business cards, advanced business cards, luxury business cards, and more.

Our entire company is positioned around uniqueness and customization, so the new shopping cart is a natural fit. Not only can customers now see ALL the optional add-ons and each one’s price point, but any or all of them can be added to any “upload your own design” product. More options, upfront pricing, and pricing visibility – these are the true benefits this new functionality brings directly to our current and potential customers.

We hope our customers like the new functionality. Your feedback is critical, so please send us an email and let us know what you think! Our hope is to continuously refine the shopping cart over time so that it becomes more and more powerful and intuitive, and we can only do this with your help – so, don’t be shy and let us ‘have it’!

After thinking about her question, I thought it would make a great topic for this week’s blog post (even though business cards are only a small piece of the overall marketing puzzle). The key, obviously, is leveraging “free” forms of advertising to flood the local market with your marketing message.

One such tactic is Craigslist. Craigslist.com is ranked in the top 30 of all websites according to Alexa.com. In terms of potential traffic, that number is absolutely HUGE. However, you still need a well written ad & title for it to be effective, and your ad must have staying power so that the message is seen repetitively. For example, in one recent scientific study, it was noted that most consumers do not fully notice or react to an ad until they see it for the 3rd or 4th time! The bottom line is that your ad must be reoccurring to be effective.

Craigslist also lets you post pictures on your ad, and this is something you will definitely want to do. Think of it this way…when you are searching for a car on autotrader.com or browsing through MySpace or even a dating website, do you ever click on a profile with no photo? Generally speaking, 99% of the time you will click the profile with a photo.

While not as effective as Craigslist, there are also other free classified ad services that you may want to pursue, such as backpage.com, listsomething.com, or plugstar.com just to name a few.

From the low-tech side of the equation, if you are planning to physically distribute flyers or brochures within your local area, you would probably be better served simply distributing your business card. Why? For one, biz cards are significantly cheaper and lighter than flyers.

Another reason is – believe it or not – business cards are more effective. While it is true that far less information can be placed on a biz card compared to a flyer simply due to the relative size of each medium, in effect that’s why it’s better. Although people are more likely to be initially attracted by a large colorful flyer, there is a far greater chance that the flyer will be discarded compared to your card, which is obviously smaller and can easily be “put away” in a pocket for future reference.

You could distribute your business cards yourself by leaving them on windshield wipers, mailboxes, store bulletin boards, etc. However, given that time is money, a more efficient distribution method would be to hire someone. The typical rate is $10 an hour or $10 per 1000. Of course, this tactic is only worthwhile if you are located in a highly populated area. Otherwise, focus your distribution efforts on commercial businesses or other venues that attract a lot of walk-in traffic.

Luckily, like most things in life, this decision-making process can be filtered down to just a few key decision points. Actually, 5 key decision points to be exact, 3 dealing with the cards themselves and 2 dealing with the printers. So without further ado, here we go!

Card Factor #1: Type of Card Stock

Custom business cards can be printed on paper or card stock. If you are looking to impress, the choice is obvious. Real card stock is better. Card stock thickness is typically measured by a point system that corresponds to thickness in inches. For example, 15pt cardstock is 0.015 inches thick, 10pt cardstock is 0.010 inches thick, and so on. Usually, the thicker the card, the higher the perceived quality.

Card Factor #2: Type of Coating

The 2 most common types of custom business card coatings are glossy UV (ultra-violet) and silk lamination. A coated business card is relatively unique because most folks still carry around those dull 1-sided paper cards. Plus, coated cards add a flare of elegance and durability. All else being equal, coated cards are usually perceived to be of higher quality than non-coated cards and hence are preferred.

Card Factor #3: Optional Features

If you are reading this, chances are you want your business card to make an amazing first impression. So adding “bells and whistles” like spot UV, rounded corners, perforation, irregular cuts, or embossing can really make your card uniquely stand out in a sea of monotony. Spot UV is my favorite and always looks fantastic on your own card design.

Printer Factor #1: Type of Printing Process

In other words, does the printer specialize in black and white or full color printing? What type of color? Single-sided cards or dual-sided cards? And…well, you get the point.

The thing to remember here is to narrow your search down to full color, CMYK printers only. You don’t want black and white, and printers that do not specialize in the industry-standard CMYK 4-color printing process tend to produce unpredictable results.

Printer Factor #2: Turnaround Time

The standard timeframe is 4-5 business days, although this could fluctuate slightly depending on the specific product and customization features. A stated turnaround of substantially more or less than 4-5 days should be a red flag for you.

Wrap Up

Deciding on your custom business card specs and printing company is easy if you focus on the key variables: card stock / material, coating, optional enhancements, and the printer’s process and turnaround time. Good luck!

If you want custom business cards with a black background, take the time upfront to get the correct color mixture in your black. Otherwise, you might end up with a gray card instead of a black one. Or, you might see blotches, blemishes, streaks, dust spots, or any number of annoying imperfections.

Most printers utilize the standard 4-color CMYK printing process, so we’ll go ahead and focus on that for the purposes of this blog post. C stands for cyan, M for magenta, Y for yellow and K for black, and by combining these 4 colors in a variety of ways, thousands of colors are possible.

If your custom business card has a black background, the key is to create a “rich black” that has other colors mixed into it. If your black (K) is set to 100%, oversaturation could occur and this is what usually causes problems (particularly on glossy business cards or spot UV business cards).

As you may know, color printing is often more of an art than a science, and the creation of a “rich black” is no exception. There are dozens of possible combinations that produce a rich black. However, in my experience the “best” rich black mixture is C=40%, M=20%, Y=30%, K=100%.

A couple of things to keep in mind when working with rich black and black colored business card backgrounds. First, it is best to use rich black only for your design background, or for objects at least 5 millimeters thick.

Second, if you use Adobe Photoshop, avoid using the fill command when selecting black because this will add 100% of all process colors to the image (100% = oversaturation = bad).

Finally, the “rules” for black colored custom business cards may be different when utilizing digital presses…so stick to a nice offset printing company like NexCards!

They say a pound of prevention is worth an ounce of cure, and the same goes for business card printing. The bottom line is that black colored business cards require special care and feeding. Avoid the temptation to think that any old black will print out just fine. Trust me, it’s much better to take the time on the front end to ensure your black background is of the rich black variety, than to feel the shock and dismay when your black business cards arrive at your door….gray (yuck!).