Card Personalization

General

Publicenter represents excellence in production of custom PVC cards offering newest cards personalization solutions based on performance, functionality, production times and costs. With over forty years of experience in custom cards production, the company’s internal service bureau assesses and suggests the optimal ideas for each project. We develop modern technologies to increase card personalization potential: custom magnetic stripexs cards, hot stamping, variable ink solutions, Inkjet DOD printing, card with security features, QR or bar code, signature panel, hologram  and more solutions allow us deliver projects in line with most sophisticated demands.

COMPLETE RANGE OF CARDS PERSONALIZATION SOLUTIONS

APPLICATION AND ENCODING OF MAGNETIC STRIPE
Magnetic stripe is currently one of the most widespread encoding systems in custom cards production and is used in several areas: transport, access control, loyalty cards, etc. The degree of coercivity of the stripe divides magnetic strip cards into three types: low-level coercivity (LoCo 300), medium-level (HiCo 2750) and high-level (HiCo 4000). The greater the coercivity, the lower the risk of accidental strip demagnetization.
The magnetic stripe can be colored (red, blue, green, yellow, golf, silver, etc.) and overprinted with text or logos, to better integrate it with graphics on customized magnetic stripe cards.

APPLICATION AND ENCODING OF CONTACT CHIP AND RFID
The contact microprocessor, generally known as a “chip”, is the most common tool for electronic cards personalization. The chip can contain a greater quantity of data with respect to a magnetic stripe or cards with bar code; fields of application include bank cards with security features, phone SIM cards, customized ID badges for personnel, digital wallets and loyalty cards.

The most efficient technology is undoubtedly RFID. Custom PVC cards featuring this technology are used for attendance tracking, access control, payments, ski passes and public transport tickets. Custom cards production using RFID allows detecting the presence of a microchip and an antenna, which allows contactless data transmission. RFID smart cards can have a significant amount of memory space and be read at the distance of 80 cm.

CARDS WITH QR CODE, BAR CODE, 2D DATA MATRIX
A bar code is an economic system widely used among companies manufacturing custom PVC cards,  ID badges for public transport, access control and product identification.
It is printed onto the plastic cards by thermography, inkjet or DoD. The most common bar codes are EAN (European Article Number), code 128, code 39 (alphanumeric) and 2/5 interleaved.
Modern cards personalization solutions feature QR codes and 2D data matrix.
The codes can be covered or masked to prevent duplication or copies being made.

APPLICATION OF CARD WITH SIGNATURE PANEL
Signature panel can be produced in a standard or tailored size requested by the customer. Signature panel on cards can be white or transparent and used for overlays.

VARIABLE DATA PRINTING (photos, text, numbering)
Thermographic printing – this type of card personalization uses the heat transfer of color from a ribbon onto the custom card by the print head to create high quality images.
Inkjet printing – this is a very widespread technique due to quick turnaround times and low costs.
DoD Printing – this one is long-lasting and more accurate than traditional inkjet printing.

EMBOSSING AND INDENTING
These are the most widespread techniques of card customization, generally used for credit cards: the embossing technique creates “raised” characters that appear on the cards themselves. The indent, however, prints the character into the card. To improve readability, the raised characters are colored using a tipper, while indented characters are colored by infilling.

HOT STAMPING ABOVE AND BELOW THE OVERLAY
This type of application deposits a layer of a special ribbon onto the card using heat transfer. The wide range of ribbon types available results in a unique and instantly recognizable personalization. This technique is widely used by custom PVC card manufacturers because of quality and flexibility of customization including logos and images reproduced using colored, prismatic or holographic ribbons.

PERSONALIZATION OF SIM CARDS
A SIM card (Subscriber Identity Module) is a removable memory card normally used in mobile phones. Publicenter personalizes both SIM cards with the subscriber’s data and the support cards with information and card with security features.

CARD WITH SECURITY FEATURES
SCRATCH-OFF
Scratch-off is a removable serigraph pigment to hide PIN/PUK codes applied by many phone card manufacturers. Using cold (Labels) or hot (Panels) application makes such card more secure against attempts to counterfeit them.

CARD WITH HOLOGRAM
Holographic image is obtained using laser technology that exploits the refraction and reflection of light. The hologram on card can be customized with texts, images or brand logo creating one of the most sophisticated means to ensure card security features, widely used for credit cards and bank notes. Depending on the technology employed, a 2D or 3D effect can be achieved with multiple animations based on the angle of the card.

HOLOGRAPHIC EFFECT
Extremely fine texture typical for this technique results in optic refractions that make the image similar to a traditional hologram. Textures on cards with hologram can be achieved in satin finish, floral themes, geometric motifs, abstract figures, texts, logos and much more.

INVISIBLE UV INK
Printing is achieved with special UV offset/serigraph ink invisible to the naked eye, with which complex images or textures can be created that are difficult to reproduce. It does not alter the graphics on the card since it is only visible under a Wood’s lamp.

OPTICALLY VARIABLE INK (OVI)
Printing is achieved with ink containing optically variable pigments which produce changes in the color depending on the angle from which they are observed or the angle of the light. This makes them extremely difficult to reproduce or counterfeit.

GUILLOCHE
A guilloche is an intricate geometric figure made up of numerous fine, intersecting lines. Each design is unique and, therefore, virtually impossible to reproduce.

MICRO-TEXTURE
With this particular raised varnish, created using an offset technique, it is possible to produce a contrast between shiny surfaces and opaque surfaces, which is visible in backlighting and perceivable by touch. This technique is applied to texts, images and logos to increase potential personalization of the wide range of custom PVC cards.