card stock point range

kemingMatters · 11-02-2012, 01:14 AM

I would worry more about gsm than point size, a 14pt with a low gsm will feel cheap compared to a thinner 12pt with a high gsm. Higher gsm the stiffer the card.

infinity · 11-02-2012, 01:23 AM

I was under the impression gsm was only used outside the U.S.?

im starting to get the feeling that my professor sucked. I was never taught this in depth about these things in my printing/prepress class. just goes to show you cant learn everything in a classroom.

kemingMatters · 11-02-2012, 01:12 PM

I'm outside the US, however a lot of digital printers spec gsm for paper weights.

This is something I learned on the job, you could probably have a course on paper, substrates and the like, it'd likely be pretty boring and a little tough to fully understand without actually working with them.

Try to get sample books from a bunch of different suppliers, they should give you an idea of product ranges (they vary from company to company).

Colour of white is important with paper too, you'd be amazed at the colour shift of solid screens caused by stock colour. We had some screens of cyan reading green because of the stock had a little yellow undertone.

Cosmo · 11-02-2012, 01:32 PM

Call your local paper supplier and see if they can get you some paper sample books. We used to have so many sitting around we'd throw them away or give them to the kids to draw on.

infinity · 11-02-2012, 08:43 PM

yea, im in the US thats why I had kind of over looked gsm a little bit.

i doubt there is a course on it, ive already taken a printing prepess course, and we only very briefly covered it. i havent seen any more classes relating to paper in the list, unless its titled under something else.

thanks all, ill look up some places and see if i cant get any samples.

**Buda** · 11-02-2012, 11:23 PM

I don't think you need a course on it. Just get some samples, have a feel and get to know what weights are suitable for particular jobs.

But when you're ordering, always double check with the printer what they recommend for a job. We've had many people specifiy 200gsm for business cards just because they didn't know that we would recommend 300gsm or even 350gsm. If clients don't specifiy, we go thicker. No one ever complained that their cards were too nice. But when a card is too flimsy, you never hear the end of it.

card stock point range

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