Printed Cards

All our printing is done to international “bank card” quality standards which are the highest quality print standards as we produce bank cards for Visa/Mastercard.  Our machines are always correctly color calibrated and we offer exact Pantone colors and color match printing. Our most popular form of physical card personalization is CMYK print, on standard CR80 PVC cards, which can be colour-matched to Pantone colors. This can take many forms including printing of standard text, barcodes, QR codes, photographs, logos, numbering, background graphics and more. However, we are not limited to just printing on PVC ISO-size cards, we're also able to work with a wide range of other card materials, larger card formats, key fobs, adhesive labels, stickers, wristbands and many other smart objects or wearables.

As well as physically personalizing your cards to give them the wow factor and make them unique to your brand, your cards also need to work with a wide range of access and computer systems. Logical personalization is the encoding of data to specialized machine-readable areas of a smart card. This could be a magnetic stripe or the chip/IC itself. Chip encoding can be in the form of contact-only chips, contactless RFID chips and Dual-Interface cards that are embedded in the plastic. Some of these data storage devices have standards that define the location and type of data, others just have standards that define the communications method but the memory use and data types need to be defined by the application/solution.

At Universal Smart Cards we can handle all areas of both Physical and Logical Personalization. We personalize millions of cards each year, with cutting-edge equipment to apply numbering, print color photographic images, encode data to magnetic stripes and encode data to both chip cards and contactless RFID cards.

Why stop at CYMK print… utilize a range of special effects, for a truly personalized card, that screams luxury, adds an extra level of physical security and wows card users.

When it comes to customization of your cards we offer a huge range of options, so whether you want to stand out with glitter effect inks, or add subtle branding to wooden cards with laser engraving. Discover our range of specialist key card personalization options below.

Foiling

Choose from a wide range of foiling options, including rainbow UV foil (as in the example above), silver hot foil, edge foils and more. Our card foiling options allow a wealth of benefits, from adding an extra level of security to elevating the look and feel of your key cards.

Metallic Inks

Metallic cards can be fully personalized with a wide range of print effects. The metallic effect can be seen as a shimmer that changes depending on the angle of the card and the lighting its exposed to. This gives cards a luxury feel and works well with single-colour print personalization.

Spot UV

Spot UV printing allows you to create a gloss varnish effect on certain parts of your key cards. This looks and feels slightly raised from the card and has a higher shine than the rest of the card. Highlighting key text & graphics, such as logos. It adds a high-end finish to your card design.

Raised Inks

Available in a wide range of colors raised inks add a tactile experience to the areas they are printed on the card. These work especially well where you need the text to stand out from the background, as in the metallic example above.

Laser Engraving

Laser engraving is the process of using a laser to engrave text, or a design into the surface of your key cards. This method of personalization can be used on cards and wristbands. It gives a subtle 3D look, that portrays a high-end feel. We can laser on engrave on a wide range of materials including wood, ABS & silicone.