Transparent Business Cards in Blue and Green

Sometimes we get requests for samples of transparent business cards in certain colors. It’s interesting that designs in blue are relatively common, also those in red, but we rarely get orders for green business cards and I think we have never printed one in yellow. In orange yes, but not in yellow.
Given the general preference for certain colors we had the idea to post small galleries with business cards in one special color. Here is the first one: tranparent business cards in blue and green.

Semi-transparent business card of “deep” – frosted translucent PVC, uv offset printing in blue and white

Semi-transparent business card of Bäderbau-Zingler – frosted translucent PVC, uv offset printing

Transparent business card “AXA” of Mike Blackmann – crystal clear PVC, uv offset printing

Semi-transparent business card “cwd” – frosted translucent PVC, uv offset printing
Design: Michaela Vadasz, Bestheads

Transparent business card of BackupConnect – crystal clear PVC, uv offset printing
Design: Vincent Brons, B2design.nl

Transparent business card of “Sferhy” – crystal clear PVC, uv offset printing

Transparent business card of MAXXRAM – crystal clear PVC, die cut, uv offset printing
Design: Martin Konietzny, MAXXRAM

Transparent business card “TOPAL” – crystal clear PVC, uv offset printing in white, blue and black
Design: Katja Wiemer, Found-Media

Transparent business card “Lotus Stylistix” – crystal clear PVC, uv offset printing
Design: Timo Hecht, Hecht Photographie

Semi-transparent business card “Wildlife Lutoschka” – frosted translucent PVC, uv offset printing
Photo and Design: Michael Lutoschka

Semi-transparent business card of Lothar Bodingbauer – frosted translucent PVC, uv offset printing
Photo and Design: Lothar Bodingbauer, Apostrophe.at

Transparent business card of “Taverna Belvedere” – crystal clear PVC, uv offset printing

New Transparent Business Cards – Freshly Printed

Transparent business cards are our utmost speciality However, it’s always the interplay of a good design and this extraordinary material, which creates an outstanding impact. Here are some examples of freshly printed business cards to insipre you (by clicking on the images you can enlarge them):

Transparent business card of Oliver Burghart – Event manager

Design: Oliver Burghart
Material: PVC, crystal clear (400 micron)
Printing: hot foil stamping in gold

Transparent business card of Timo Hecht – Hecht Photography

Design: René Eusterfeldhaus
Material: PVC, crystal clear (400 micron)
Printing: UV-Offset (only black and magenta)

Transparent business card of Christina Anderwald – Diplomdesignerin

Design: Christina Anderwald
Material: PVC, crystal clear (400 micron)
Printing: UV offset (4c + white)

Transparent business card of Dr. Ina Wimmer

Design: Oswald Rofner
Material: PVC, crystal clear (400 micron)
Printing: UV offset (only magenta and white),
with a background in 30% white on the right side and upper half
to create an opal glass effect

Transparent business card of Totalisimo – advertising agency

Design: Totalisimo, Spain
Material: PVC, crystal clear (400 micron)
Printing: UV offset (black, white and yellow),
with a white layer on the back of the black print to enhance opacity

Bukowa “credit card”

Transparent plastic cards of  ‘Bukowa & Partners’ in credit card style
Material: PVC transparent, 760 micron (credit card thickness)
Printing: UV offset  (CMYK), double-sided
Target: red waves have to stay translucent,
blue areas as opaque as possible
Finishing options: hot foil stamping in silver (logo),
embossing with tipping in silver

These plastic cards are part of the interactive exhibition “The Natural Laws of Economics” (July 31 til August 02, 2009 in Augsburg, Germany) and activate the installation by means of a light barrier.

Transparent Business Cards ‘LA CHANCLA’

Transparent business cards ‘LA CHANCLA’ hotel, Malaga
Material: PVC crystal clear transparent, 400 micron
Druck: UV offset single-colored + white (flip-flops left blank)

Plastic Cards ‘Ferretti’ with Hot Foil Stamping

Plastic cards ‘Ferretti-Group’ with hot foil stamping
Material: PVC, white, 760 micron (credit card thickness)
Printing: double-sided full-color uv offset printing
Finishing: hot foil stamping (logo and names)

Plastic Cards

Plastic cards with double-sided full-color printing
Material: PVC, white, 760 micron (credit card thickness)
Printing: double-sided full-color uv offset printing

Transparent Flyer and Bookmark ‘ING’

Transparent flyer and bookmark ‘ING’-Investment Management
Material flyer: PVC crystal clear transparent, 400 micron
Material bookmark: PVC frosted translucent, 300 micron (‘ruler’ format)
Print: UV offset single-sided, UV varnish for protection

Celebrate with Us! Seasonal Offer for Business Cards

Our summer holidays are coming closer and therefore we would like to give those of you a warning who are working on a design to send into print and take the opportunity to wish all others a great summer (hopefully with magnificent sunshine)

We’re closed for holidays from August 1^st to 23^rd. The last printing on the transparent substrates before our holidays will take place in the last week of July. So kindly plan your order in such a way that we will receive it till July 24^th.

Due to a material shortage at our suppliers for aluminized PVC, orders for metallic printed products can not be processed before beginning of September.
If you plan to make us print on white PVC kindly send us a request before placing your order.

Our customer care center will be staffed infrequently during our holidays and can only be contacted by mail during this period. Requests will be answered every once in a while. Starting from August 24^th, however, we will again be there for you without any restriction.

Summer season offer – Start into the summer with freshly printed business cards

Personnel and machines earned themselves a break and everybody is tickled pink in view of these holidays. We want you to be tickled too and therefore created a coupon code by which you save 30 euros on orders for transparent business cards or any other plastic printed product.
Take this opportunity and get yourself new business cards or make us reprint your last order.
Just enter SUMMER in the coupon field when placing your order and the shop system will automatically reduce the price.
Your new business cards are only a few clicks away. It couldn’t be more comfortable

Now we wish you a glorious, sunny August and are looking forward to continuing our cooperation with you, no matter if before or after our holidays.

Best regards,

Your Businesscards EXPRESS team

Tutorial: What Do You Mean by „Offset Colors Are Transparent“?

Earlier this week with a customer I exchanged some mails on UV offset printing in general and then eventually this lead to a treatise on the characteristics of offset inks. I’d say this is a good occasion to write a post on the transparency of offset inks.

First of all, offset colors are generally slightly transparent. Even an “opaque white” isn’t opaque at 100%.
Normally, on white substrates, apart from the fact that thus offset colors are more brilliant than colors in digital printing, the transparency has no further effect. On transparent materials, however, the transparency of the inks evokes a special impact and requires extra attention.

Due to the transparency of the inks, in many cases it is necessary to add a white layer on the back of some graphic elements to render the colors more opaque. With such a white layer the impact of the design doesn’t depend so much on the incidence of light and the background, and in addition the colors appear more vibrant.
Adding a white layer behind white elements isn’t possible and thus white itself has to remain slightly transparent. To achieve an absolutely opaque white in offset printing is only possible by means of several (3-4) layers of color. This actually is a very elaborate and thus expensive procedure and therefore makes only sense with large orders.
One example for such a special order is the Dorint-Flyer:

This flyer has been printed with five layers on crystal clear PVC: print for the front of the flyer, three layers of white in between, print for the back. The background of the design for the back side is golden, and even if metallic inks are the most opaque of all offset inks, with backlight you can still see the print from the other side shine through a bit.

The best impression of the transparency of offset inks surely conveys the following picture. The card has been printed with white at 100%.

In many cases in which the design plays with transparency, in which gentle gradients or maybe a transparent coloring of the whole business card is desired, the transparency of the inks is an advantage.

In all other cases we’re happy to assist you with an advice based on our long experience with these transparent materials. If you wish, we can also provide you with special samples which illustrate different grades of transparency, with and without a white layer.

1000+ Creative Business Card Designs, Part 1

There are some incredible and voluminous business card collections out there in the vastness of the web. Great for inspiration or just for to look and marvel. Here is a selection:

Cool Business Cards Designs (at creativebits.org)
One of the “classical” collections. Recently the bell was sounded for the third round: part 2 und part 3

33 Stunning Business Cards (at Farbwolke.de)
Nice, well-researched collection with a lot of “new” business cards, i.e. not just taken from the other famous galleries.

Businesscards of Bloggers (at brianyerkes.com)
Yes, there ARE bloggers who stick to REAL business cards…

35 Cool and Inspirational Business Card Designs (at crazyleafdesign.com)
Some repetitions, but also some “new” cards.

Art of the Business Card (at dailypoetics.typepad.com)
A very voluminous “classic”, unfortunately a bit laborious to browse.

100 (Really) Creative Business Cards (at webdesignerdepot.com)
A collection of business cards which have been taken from other collections, in all nice, though.

To be continued.