Glossy? Double-sided? Matte? A Business Card Glossary for the Layman
Having a well-designed business card can do wonders for your business. If you plan to design your business card yourself you’ll need to know a few terms that will help you in this process.
- Bleed area – The area on your business card that it is not safe to put text in, as it may be cut off in the trimming process.
- Brightness: The brilliance or reflectance of paper
- CMYK – An abbreviation of the computer format that is most used for printing processes. The four colors are Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, and Black.
- Design software – Software such as Adobe Photoshop, Adobe InDesign, Adobe PageMaker, or Quark XPress that can be used to create your business card.
- Double-sided – A type of business card that has printing on both side
- DPI – Dots per inch. This number generally should be 300 for all printing jobs.
- File type – There are many different types of files that a business card graphic can be saved as. These include JPG, PDF, EPS, TIFF, and PSD.
- Full bleed – Printing that goes to the edge of the sheet after trimming.
- Full color – Use of four colors (cyan, magenta, yellow, and black) in the printing process
- Gloss – shine
- Image area: Portion of paper on which ink can appear.
- Matte – Dull paper or ink finish.
- Pantone – A mode of computer graphic file creation and standard set of colors that can be used by printers to get exact coloring.
- Paper Weight – Indicates how thick the paper being used is. The higher the number the thicker your business card will be. Standard weight for business cards is 80# or 100#.
- Raised Print – Having text that has texture on your card and is above the plane of the paper
- RGB – A mode of computer graphic file creation. It is not good to use RGB (red, green, blue) mode as color variations may occur.
- Singe-sided – A type of business card that has printing on only on side
- Text line – The line beyond which no text should be. The trim area is after the bleed area.
- Trim size – The final size of one printed image after the last trim is made.
- Trim area – The area between the text line and the bleed area. One should not have any text in this area.
- UV Coating – Liquid laminate bonded and cured with ultraviolet light.
Hopefully understanding these terms will make it easier for you to create your business cards. For additional guidance in creating your cards, you can visit Business Cards FAQ.
