Plastic business cards with selective varnish

Business cards coated with selective varnish allow you to create a unique and convex pattern on the surface of the business card. Raised logos, highlighted personal data, geometric textures, floral patterns, shapes of the products or services offered… your ideas and our technical printing capabilities can create truly unique business cards.

Convex varnish, also known as selective varnish, is a special printing technique on plastic cards, thanks to which the patterns printed in this way will have a clearly visible, convex shape that can be felt with the fingers.

Convex varnish is a very often chosen method of decorating a card. It allows you to obtain “depth” and three-dimensionality in patterns and is particularly effective in the case of small elements, such as a logo or a pattern consisting of many small elements.

Selective varnish comes in three types:
– shiny convex,
– shiny flat,
– matte flat.

Additionally, plastic business cards are also covered with a transparent laminate, which increases their durability and resistance to damage. This laminate comes in three types:
– shiny,
– matte smooth,
– matte rugged.

Therefore, having various types of selective varnish prints and various types of lamination available, you can create very original compositions of matte and glossy elements. The most popular and at the same time effective combinations are, for example:
– elements made with glossy varnish on matte lamination,
– prints made with matte varnish on glossy lamination.

Designing business cards with selective varnish

Because prints made with selective varnish are made using a different printing technique, two designs must be prepared to make business cards with selective varnish. One file should contain the general design of business card, which will be made using offset printing in CMYK colors (optional Pantone), and
the second file containing the design of elements to be made with selective varnish. Such a design should be made in only one color – black, the so-called K: 100%.

Details on how to prepare designs for printing plastic business cards can be found in our card design specifications. Further details regarding printing with selective varnish – technical recommendations, limitations – can be found on the page glossy / matte varnish.

We also invite you to learn about other printing options that are worth considering on business cards – personalization prints, QR codes, or even the recently popular NFC tags, thanks to which your business card will be able to communicate with modern smartphones.

The shape of a car for the owner of a car showroom, floral patterns for a flower shop owner, the outline of a building for an architect… selective varnish can be used to print sophisticated patterns that will definitely make your business cards stand out. If you already have an idea for a business card design with selective varnish, contact us to discuss the technical possibilities of printing such cards, or use the quote form to obtain the approximate cost of their implementation.