Swatches, Swatch cards, Fan Cards

Product styles 

A swatch is created when we collate a few cards together, knock-up and fasten in one position with a brass or nickel eyelet. The most common shape for a swatch is rectangular with rounded corners. This is generally the easiest to work with – easiest to collate and easiest to knock-up. Square-cut corners are not as common as they aren’t as “user-friendly” Circular, egg-shaped and random-shapes can be very awkward to handle particularly when trying to line up the holes for eyeletting. As a consequence, these shapes are much more expensive to work on just because they take a lot longer to do.

Hole information 

Swatch cards are to be supplied cut to size and drilled or die-cut with a 5mm diameter hole to accommodate the eyelet. The hole is usually positioned at the top left of the card but this is entirely at the discretion of the designer. If the job has to be fastened with an interscrew then the hole diameter needs to be 5.5mm or 6mm depending on which interscrew is used. We can drill square or rectangular cards here on site but round, oval or shaped cards MUST be supplied already die-punched.

Optimum sizes

The most common sizes for swatch cards seem to be A7 and credit-card-sized though there is no reason why they cannot be up to A4 or thereabouts. The number of cards that can be eyeletted to make a swatch is limited by the capacity of the most common stationery eyelets. We don’t often go over 10 leaves of 350gsm or 12 leaves of 300gsm. If the swatches get much thicker than that we usually recommend the use of interscrews (binding screws) though this is a much dearer option.

Packing

As with any eyeletted product, damage may occur if rough handling is experienced in transit. This is usually caused by an eyelet rubbing against an adjacent product. We usually stagger or step the swatches in the act of packing so as to try to keep any possible damage to a minimum. We are able to interleave the products but this service IS charged extra.