Test Prints from Ivory Graphics – Review

The day is here! We have our first professional test prints from Ivory Graphics in the UK 🤩.

As this is my first time getting game cards printed, I thought I would share my experience and post some detailed scans so you can see the quality for yourself.

Overview

The overall quality of the cards is fantastic. The card stock used feels lovely in the hand, they shuffle and play well, and the box looks great.

The cards were printed on the 310gsm Heretic Smooth Black Cored Playing Card Board. Here are the full order specs:

I have printed many copies of this game at home, and so I am very used to the extremely vibrant colours from our home printer, and using the RGB workflow. The professional prints are just lacking the “pop” of the prints from the Canon G650.

The card backs especially are lacking a little “oomph” in the red/blue colours:

Seeing as these cards are going to eventually be 4 colour offset print using a traditional press, I think HP Indigo prints do a fine job imitating what they will eventually look like.

Here is a high resolution scan of the original artwork and the printed artwork for a single card so you can compare:

Mistakes to Avoid in Future

There was one big mistake I made when designing these – not paying more attention to CMYK colour values of lines.

I used CMYK(0,0,0,100)% for the text, but used a random CMYK(82,75,59,79)% for the black line around the text box – which resulted in a very jagged looking line.

If I had instead used CMYK(0,0,0,100)% or CMYK(30,30,30,100)% it would have been a nice crisp line, without the jagged edges from the screen angle.

Other than that, there were no serious artwork mistakes in the artwork on my part.

Speed

The artwork for the order was approved on 13th March 2024.

The order was packed on 15th March 2024.

The package was delivered on 18th March 2024.

2 days to print, and 5 days until it was in my hands – not bad at all!

Compared with Home Printing

The results from our Canon G650 at home are spectacular – the colours really pop and the sharpness is amazing, so the CMYK prints from Ivory pale a little bit in comparison, especially in out of gamut reds/greens.

A picture speaks a thousand words, so here are some photos and scans:

More Images

Conclusion

Ivory Graphics did a great job on these prints, and I’ll definitely be using them again in the future. The speed with which they were able to deliver was amazing as well, and it was very exciting to see the final size/shape/quality of the cards in person.

I highly recommend them!