Custom Standard PVC Identity Card

The cheap version of this product is printed paper in a plastic sleeve, and it looks like it within a month — the ink lifts, the paper creases, and the whole thing slides out of position every time somebody bends down. These are printed directly onto PVC and cut to CR80, the bank card size, so there is nothing to peel or fade.

The print decides the price. Colour front with a single black on the reverse is the ordinary staff card: the photograph and the branding on the face, the terms, the barcode or a return address on the back. Full colour both sides is for the card that carries the same branding either way up — a membership card, a card the public sees. The trade writes these 4/1 and 4/4, and the names on the page say which is which.

Portrait is the usual choice, because that is how a badge hangs on a lanyard, but landscape suits a card that lives in a wallet or goes through a reader. A barcode or staff number can be printed and scanned for access control, and a QR code can point at a directory or a verification page. The lanyard slot is a choice rather than a default: most orders take a cover or a case, which does the hanging and takes the wear, so the card itself is left whole. Ask for the punch and we cut the slot before the cards leave us.

Send a spreadsheet of names and roles with a folder of photographs and we lay the whole set out — you approve one proof, not fifty. The covers and cases take the knocks instead of the card, and the lanyards run from a plain cotton strap to branded satin with a hook buckle and a snap clip, so the card detaches for a reader without anyone taking the lanyard off.