Card per­son­al­i­sa­tion mate­ri­als are impor­tant for adding unique fea­tures and cus­tomised infor­ma­tion to card prod­ucts. Card per­son­al­i­sa­tion typ­i­cal­ly requires a vari­ety of mate­ri­als and com­po­nents, depend­ing on the type of card being per­son­alised (e.g. credit/debit card, ID card, gift card). The fol­low­ing are the most com­mon­ly used mate­ri­als:

Thermal ribbon

Ther­mal rib­bons typ­i­cal­ly con­sist of a film coat­ed with a lay­er of wax, resin or a com­bi­na­tion of both. Ther­mal rib­bons are used to print text, images, bar­codes and oth­er infor­ma­tion direct­ly onto the sur­face of a card. The print­ed infor­ma­tion is trans­ferred from the rib­bon to the card when heat­ed, cre­at­ing a per­ma­nent image. Ther­mal rib­bons are avail­able in dif­fer­ent colours such as black, white, gold, sil­ver, etc.

Foil roll

Foil rolls are typ­i­cal­ly made from a thin lay­er of metal­lic or col­ored foil that can be applied to the sur­face of a card. This type of foil is applied using a hot stamp­ing process, where heat and pres­sure are used to trans­fer the foil onto the card sur­face. It can come in var­i­ous col­ors, includ­ing metal­lic (gold, sil­ver) and glossy fin­ish­es. Foil rolls are com­mon­ly used to add dec­o­ra­tive ele­ments to cards, such as logos, text, or pat­terns, enhanc­ing the visu­al appeal.

Magnetic Stripe

Mag­net­ic stripes are an essen­tial part of card per­son­al­i­sa­tion, espe­cial­ly for pay­ment cards, ID cards and access cards. Mag­net­ic stripes typ­i­cal­ly con­sist of a thin strip of mag­net­ic mate­r­i­al, usu­al­ly a poly­mer or plas­tic, coat­ed with mag­net­ic pow­der. This pow­der con­sists of iron oxide or oth­er mag­net­ic mate­r­i­al that can be mag­ne­tised to store data. Mag­net­ic stripes are usu­al­ly black, but there are a vari­ety of colour options for mag­net­ic stripes used in card per­son­al­i­sa­tion, includ­ing gold, sil­ver, red, blue, green and brown.

Scratch-Off Panel

Scratch-off pan­els are a com­mon fea­ture on a vari­ety of cards, includ­ing gift cards, lot­tery tick­ets and pro­mo­tion­al cards. Scratch-off pan­els typ­i­cal­ly con­sist of a thin lay­er of opaque mate­r­i­al that can be eas­i­ly scratched off to reveal the infor­ma­tion under­neath. This mate­r­i­al is usu­al­ly a com­bi­na­tion of latex or poly­mer coat­ings print­ed on a lay­er of ink or print­ed code. Scratch-off pan­els are designed to hide infor­ma­tion such as a PIN, pro­mo­tion­al code or oth­er sen­si­tive data. Users can use a coin or sim­i­lar object to scratch off the pan­el to reveal the infor­ma­tion hid­den under­neath.

Hologram security label

A holo­gram secu­ri­ty label card is a card that con­tains a holo­gram secu­ri­ty label to enhance its authen­tic­i­ty and pre­vent coun­ter­feit­ing. These cards are often used in a vari­ety of appli­ca­tions, includ­ing iden­ti­fi­ca­tion, access con­trol, and prod­uct authen­ti­ca­tion. Holo­graph­ic secu­ri­ty label cards fea­ture a holo­graph­ic label affixed to the sur­face of the card. This label usu­al­ly dis­plays a holo­graph­ic image or pat­tern that changes appear­ance depend­ing on the angle of light, pro­vid­ing visu­al anti-coun­ter­feit­ing capa­bil­i­ties.

You can pur­chase card per­son­al­i­sa­tion mate­ri­als and make your own cus­tom cards for small quan­ti­ties. For large quan­ti­ties, we rec­om­mend you use a pro­fes­sion­al card mak­er. HYD­card is always at your ser­vice.