Velvet lamination: what you are paying for

When it earns its cost

Velvet only pays off where the card is physically handed to someone and held. For a business built on in-person meetings — property, law, hospitality, design — that moment is the entire purpose of the card.

It is money wasted on anything posted, filed or left on a counter, where nobody will ever feel it.

What to watch

Velvet on a solid dark colour scuffs and shows marks where it is handled. If the design is predominantly dark, consider matte lamination with a spot UV highlight instead — you get contrast without the wear.

The specifications this applies to

For reference, here is how it works out on the products this comes up on most often.

• Standard Visiting Cards — 89 × 51 mm finished, 3 mm bleed, 300 DPI minimum, from ₹2 per unit with a minimum of 100.

Ordering

Every file is checked automatically before printing, so a mistake in any of this is caught while it can still be corrected rather than after a run is on paper.

Standard delivery is free to every PIN code in India — two working days to a metro, up to twelve to the islands — and prices include GST, so the figure on the product page is the figure charged. Add a GSTIN at checkout and the invoice carries it for input credit.

Choosing without seeing it

Paper and finish are difficult to judge from a screen, which is why the descriptions on each product say what a stock is best for, what it is poor for, and what it feels like in the hand rather than only listing a GSM figure.

If a decision genuinely hinges on the feel, order the smallest quantity first. On most products the minimum is 100 units, which costs very little against the risk of committing a full run to a stock that turns out wrong.