Xquisite – The Answer for the Card Market!!
The gift card. The key fob. The Membership card. If you’re a printer, chances are you read one of those items and immediately tied it back to your press and a job you do, or have done, for your customers. The card market is a booming market for printers with the explosion of digital technology and desire for brand owners to create loyalty. These cards and tags show up in nearly every purse, wallet, and keyring across the country (go ahead, open your wallet or purse and count how many you have). It’s hard to find a better fit for variable data printing technology than a market that requires changing bar codes, unique identifying numbers, and personalized data! It’s no wonder the growth of this market is accelerating at an unprecedented pace!
With all the excitement and growth that is coming from the card and tag market, many printers have also faced a serious challenge. The typical loyalty card is built using a center core of material printed on both sides with an equally durable lamination to seal in the printing. Few materials have held up to the rigors of producing a card and printers often have found themselves tied into a very limited range of usable materials. This limited range has led to concerns over the “yellow” nature of cards, the ability to bond tightly to the core, and at the end of the day, many converters are struggling to find ways to continue to captivate their customers when every card is produced with the same material and construction. Many of the largest card manufacturers have turned to Masterpiece Graphix for help and found the answer was simply…Xquisite!
You see, Masterpiece Graphix wanted to help the card market break free of the traditional method of producing loyalty cards. We worked with some of the largest card manufacturers to tackle the challenges that they were experiencing while creating an exciting new synthetic paper designed to captivate customers who wanted more than “just another loyalty card”. The end result of this cooperative development was Xquisite, the revolutionary new synthetic paper for the card and tag market! The brighter white, strong lamination bond, and supreme printability deliver a synthetic material for the card market like never before.
Brighter White and Better Bond!
Xquisite was designed with the card and tag market in mind. Working closely with our partners, we first addressed the lamination bond strength. After all, nobody wants a peeling card! Partnering with some of the best in the business for creating laminates and laminating equipment, MGX has created a material that laminates like nothing else. When paired with the correct laminate, Xquisite cards have lamination pull strength exceeding 12 lbs! Now that’s one tough card.
The next challenge was to address the color. We live in a society that is drawn to sharp, clean, bright whites. Look at your favorite electronic brands to see what we mean. Traditionally, the materials used to create loyalty cards lacked the brightness and pizzazz that people expect out of high-end products. Gone are the days in which you had to settle for a dirty looking card. Xquisite’s ultra-white appearance delivers a card that shows off your printing and leaves your customer saying “Wow!”.
Efficiency, Efficiency, Efficiency
What’s the point of creating a new card, taking the time to convert customers, and introducing new materials if it doesn’t help YOUR business? Traditional cards required you to build a card using thick laminates, expensive materials, and slower processing. Working with our customers, we developed products not only in the standard 10 mil range, but also in 15, 18, and 20 mil thicknesses. Thicker core stock means thinner laminate films, lower heat required to bond, and faster run speeds through your lamination equipment.
These new gauges
1) allow your operation to reduce the total applied cost of building a card,
2) allow you to use thinner, cost-effective laminates, and
3) allow you to increase your throughput by up to 30%!
Quite simply, your card production will never be the same. And will be far more profitable.
Want to learn more on how you can capture new opportunities, become more efficient, and take advantage of the latest technology to hit the card production market? Give the experts at Masterpiece Graphix a call. We would love to show what makes our materials truly Xquisite.