Artwork and Print Specification for Hotel Key Cards

Cards are produced at CR80, 85.6 × 54 mm, at 0.76 mm thickness. Artwork needs bleed beyond that outline because cards are cut from a sheet and the cut has a tolerance: a background that stops exactly at the trim line will show a white edge on some cards in the run and not on others.

Equally, anything that must not be cut — a logo, a room number field, legal text — needs to sit inside a safe zone away from the edge. Corners are radiused, so a design that runs detail into the corner loses it. These two rules account for most of the reprints we see.

Supply artwork in CMYK. A file built in RGB will be converted for print, and the colours that shift most in that conversion are the bright saturated blues and greens that resort branding tends to use — exactly the ones a property is most protective of. Where a brand colour has to match precisely, specify it as a spot colour rather than trusting a process build.

Lamination changes perceived colour too. Matte lowers contrast and mutes saturation slightly; gloss lifts both. For Dominican properties we generally recommend matte on the room card because it hides handling marks, and that recommendation is worth making before the artwork is approved rather than after.

Decide early what has to live on the back: sequential numbering, a QR or barcode, a signature panel, contact details, legal text. Each occupies real space and each has contrast requirements — a barcode on a dark background will not scan, so it needs a light panel, and that panel has to be in the design rather than added later.

Numbering placement matters more than it looks. Numbers printed where a thumb rests wear first. On a card that also carries a QR code, keep the two apart so a scanner does not catch both.

We proof artwork against the agreed specification before production and produce a sample for approval. That approval is the point at which colour, placement and finish are settled, and it is deliberately the last cheap moment to change any of them.

1. 01

   Files at CR80 85.6 × 54 mm with bleed beyond the trim line.

2. 02

   Critical elements inside the safe zone, clear of radiused corners.

3. 03

   CMYK artwork, with spot colours specified where a brand colour must match.

4. 04

   Lamination decided before approval, since it changes perceived colour.

5. 05

   Reverse-face plan: numbering, QR or barcode, signature panel, legal text.

6. 06

   Light panels behind codes on dark designs, built into the artwork.

7. 07

   Sample approval before production, covering colour, placement and finish.

Construction and material options come first — cards and wristbands for local conditions.

Treat the reverse face as a designed surface rather than a leftover. Numbering, codes and panels have contrast and position requirements that are cheap to satisfy in the file and expensive to fix once a run has been produced.