Sided Cardstock

What are Silk Business Cards?

Your business card is extremely important, because it is part of the equation when potential clients form their first impression of you and your company.  Therefore, a high-quality, professionally-printed card is critical.  This is not an area for self-service; always hire a reputable printing company to produce your business cards.

Top-notch business card printers typically offer a variety of cardstocks to choose from.  One such cardstock option at the high end of the quality scale is silk, sometimes referred to as “silk-satin.”  This is one of the classiest and most elegant cardstocks you will ever see.

Silk Lamination

First and foremost, let’s talk about what exactly the silk is comprised of.  The silky coating is accomplished via silk-lamination, typically on 10pt or 15pt cardstock.  This laminate coating is completely unnoticeable and invisible unless you try to tear the card.  If you try and rip a silk business card, you will see the ultra-thin, transparent layer of silk-laminate peel away from 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 writeable, meaning you can write on the card with pens, pencils, and markers with ease.  This is a nice feature and is something that is not possible with glossy business cards.  This attribute works well for jotting down appointments, so it is particularly appropriate for doctors, dentists, attorneys, or similar professionals. 

No-Gloss Elegance

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

Glossy business cards are coated with a varnish-like substance known as glossy UV (ultra-violet), which is completely different from the lamination associated with silk business cards.  It is this glossy varnish that creates the aforementioned inconveniences.  Conversely, 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. 

Enhancements

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.

Summary

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.  

About the Author

NexCards.com provides unique, fully customized business card products, including silk business cards, glossy ultra-violet, spot UV, metal, plastic, rounded corner, panoramic, custom cut, and much, much more. Our high quality business cards can be easily designed online, or you can upload your own design file – the choice is yours. Competitive pricing, superior customer service, and a comprehensive satisfaction guarantee that is unmatched in the industry have helped make NexCards.com one of Internet’s leading providers of ultra-premium business cards.

Idea's for DIY wedding invitations?

I bought some nice wedding invitations, and already have them all printed out. I would like to put a personal touch on it and was wondering if anyone had any ideas. Such as using ribbons, colored cardstock paper, etc.

The invitations are size 8" x 5". Right now I have dark blue cardstock tri-folded, so that the invitation is centered in the middle and the cardstock is folded from both left and right sides over the front. Then I have a ribbon tying it. The only problem is, that there's a 1/4" gap inbetween where the paper meets and it doesn't look good. Sorry, it's hard to explain!!

Does anyone have ideas? Thanks!

Do you want to gap to be covered?
If so, how about a ribbon, lace of strip of different paper that is a little bigger than the gap glued to one edge?
On dark blue I would go for a light colour to set it off, like spider-wed origami paper in white, or a cream or light blue ribbon. Or Dark blue just one shade darker or lighter than the card itself.
If you use ribbon or light paper, you might need to stiffen it with starch or glue.
Do that before gluing it on.

If you want to leave the gap open, you can make a small decoration in the colour of the inside of the paper or the colour of the text and glue that to the outside of the card, like the right hand corner.
Or use the same ribbon as the one you use for tying it closed for a decoration.

Cardstock flip photo holders for mini albums

Tags: card, design_scrapbooking, double sided cardstock, double sided cardstock paper, paper, scrapbook, tobuy, two sided cardstock

This entry was posted on Thursday, August 5th, 2010 at 1:04 pm and is filed under scrapbooking. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.