Premium Business Cards in Dubai: Each Finish Adds Another Day
A premium card is not a better print. It is the same print with extra operations after it, each needing its own setup, its own machine and its own day. Premium business cards in Dubai are priced and scheduled by how many of those operations you choose to stack.
Quantity: 250 cards · Printed sides: Single sided · Metallic foil: No foil · Edge treatment: Plain edge · Turnaround: Standard — 4 working days
An estimator replies with a firm, VAT-inclusive price and a production date.From your file to the finished job.
Six steps happen between the brief and the finished job. Here they are, in the order they happen on our floor in Dubai South.
Hot Foil Needs a Metal Die
Foil is not ink. A heated brass die presses metallic film onto the board, so your logo has to be cut into metal first. That die is a one off cost and a few days, and it is kept for reorders.
Embossing Takes a Matched Pair
Raising the surface needs two dies, one pushing up and one supporting from behind, machined to fit each other. Because it deforms the board, whatever is embossed on the front shows as a dent on the back, and the design has to accept that.
Painted Edges Require a Duplexed Card
Colour on the edge needs a thick enough edge to see, which means two sheets bonded into one card. That bonding happens first, the block is cut, then the edges are painted and left to dry. This is the slowest finish of the lot.
Soft Touch Changes How It Feels
A soft touch laminate gives a card a suede surface that people comment on in the hand. It is also the finish that shows fingernail marks and will not take a pen, so it suits dark designs and nothing you need to write on.
Spot Varnish Works by Contrast
A gloss varnish applied to selected areas over a matt card makes a logo catch the light while the rest stays flat. With no matt around it the effect disappears, so this finish is only visible when it is used sparingly.
Dies Made, Then Kept
Foil and emboss dies are stored against your job, so the second order skips the tooling and the lead time drops back to a few days.
The realistic point about stacking. Foil, emboss, duplex and painted edge on one card is four separate setups and close to two weeks, and each operation is a chance for registration to drift a fraction. Picking one finish and doing it well beats picking four.
Compare with standard business cards, plastic and metal cards, and business card printing.
What you get.
- Printed sides
- Single sided · Double sided
- Metallic foil
- No foil · Gold foil · Rose gold foil · Silver foil
- Edge treatment
- Plain edge · Painted edge
- Turnaround
- Standard — 4 working days · Express — 2 working days
- Quantities
- 250 · 500 · 1,000 · 2,000 cards, or any other number
- Proof
- A digital proof before anything prints
- Delivery
- All seven emirates, or collect from Dubai South
What every order includes
- A free prepress check on your file
- A digital proof before anything prints
- One VAT-inclusive quote with a production date
- Delivery to all seven emirates, or collection from Dubai South
Setting up your file.
- 01Work at the finished sizeSet the page to the exact trimmed size of the piece, not a larger sheet with crop marks drawn in.
- 02Add 3 mm bleedRun background colour and images 3 mm past every edge that gets trimmed, so no white line shows after cutting.
- 03Keep text off the edgeHold text and logos at least 4 mm inside the trim line, clear of the blade.
- 04Send a print-ready PDFCMYK, fonts embedded or outlined, images at 300 dpi at final size. AI, EPS and high-resolution JPEG also work.
Quick answers.
It is pressed on with heated metal, not printed.
Yes, as a dent. The design has to allow for it.
Several days for one finish, up to two weeks for several.