❖ Version History ❖

12-15th of June 2022
When producing anything on card stock through a professional printer, you have a very challenging choice that must be faced: are you going to laminate it, and do you choose to use gloss or matte lamination on your final designs? Well, while it is unfortunately not as environmentally friendly to laminate, it is almost necessary when producing cards that are going to be shuffled. Why? Well, because the lamination is a big part of what keeps shaped correctly (without bends or tears). But, what about this choice between the two types of lamination?? What makes them different and why would you choose one versus the other in the end? Let’s talk about it, but first take a look at these two images:

Look:
As you can see in the image above, there are immediate differences between the two types of card stock. The image on the left of is the Matte Lamination, while the one on the right is the Gloss lamination. Right away, you can probably tell that the Gloss is unique in that it has a shimmer to it that reflects light, while the matte does not do this.

Feel:
You unfortunately cannot feel the sheets through the image, but there is also a major difference in the texture of the two lamination types as well. The Matte is softer and smoother feeling to the fingers, where the gloss has more grip in the texture.

Color:
And while the images above look almost identical in color from afar, there are unfortunately some differences here that are much more challenging to see right away. to get a better idea of this, look at these examples instead:

If you look closely at the image with the blue cards, you can see that the black lines are not the same across the two designs. The card on the bottom of this comparison has the matte lamination while the card on top has the gloss. Unfortunately, the beauty & vibrance of the color in the red & blue is slightly washed out, and the black is also almost grey with this same feature. While this isn’t exactly the worst case on the blue cards, it is noticeably different on cards that feature more black tones than colors, which is why we also have the back of the rule card shown in the example above as well.

The card on the bottom of the two rule cards is also the matte lamination, while the gloss is on top, and as you can see in this example, the entirety of the card looks washed out in tone, because the blacks are just not as clear through the layer of the matte lamination.

So what does this mean for us? And what did we decide to do for Calendra?

Well, I have to admit, this was a truly challenging element to the production for me. While gloss lamination is cheaper and more clear on the colors, I absolutely loved the feeling of the matte lamination on the cards: it shuffled smoother, it felt nice, and looked overall more professional as a product…. but the loss of the clear color was an absolute deal breaker for me no matter how much I wanted to look past it.

In the end, I find it far more critical for the artwork to shine through the gloss than anything else. And, though I hate to admit it, after a week of thinking about it we decided to go with the gloss.