Creating Clear Cards
Clear cards can be used in clever ways, though there are a few key considerations to take into account in order to print the cards as you intended in your design.
Clear PVC cards allow for both front and back artwork to be printed on a single side. The back (reflected) artwork is then visible through the other side of the plastic, so the back artwork does not need to be mirrored in the same way you would mirror artwork if the art was printed on both sides of the plastic.
The exception to the mirroring rule is if you have text on the back (reflected) side of your card. You will want to mirror the text - and only the text - so that it is readable through the plastic.
In the above example, the template has been left on for clarity.
Note that the white ink layer that is printed behind any color artwork (that is not pure 100% white) is generated by the printer software. With clear cards, any parts of your images that use pure white (hex code #FFFFFF) will not print, so you will need to use another color instead. For more information about this, please visit the Printing with White Ink help article.
A side effect of this different printing process is if your front and back artwork have a different silhouette, you will be able to easily see the white layer of the opposite side when looking at the part. The ink layers have thickness as well, so the faint outline of the opposite side’s ink layers will sometimes be visible if the silhouettes are different. For an example of this, please visit the Printing on Large Acrylic Shapes help article, but take careful note that the printing order for large acrylic shapes is different than clear cards.
**Please note that clear cards are not dry erase-compatible!
Cards of the same type/shape/size within one game copy will not be an any particular order or sorted by deck when packaged.
If you are using your cards horizontally, both the front and back images will need to have the same orientation when uploaded to have the same orientation in print. (This is different from our instructions for creating cardstock cards.)