Collected thoughts on card design

Honestly, at this point I find it refreshing to see a logotype that isn’t just a bland, generic sans serif.

7 Likes

Mark my words! The serif trend is making something of a comeback, particularly in upmarket products and services. I think we’ll soon start to see businesses at the higher end of their industries begin to adopt a serif branding in order to differentiate and portray affluence, if they don’t already.

Not sure where this serif resurgence started, but we started exploring it a little less than a year ago for some clients, and it looks good when implemented with a modicum of quality and paired with other modern aesthetics.

Unfortunately Tesco’s typeface isn’t modern, so it can’t achieve the same effect.

For some examples that make serif work, whilst still looking modern, have a look at the higher end VPN service ExpressVPN.

I’m probably way off topic at this point, but if someone wants to start a thread to geek over calligraphy, I’ll join! :smirk:

On the topic of card design though, Triodos do a nice serif logo on their cards. Would be awesome if they gave it a letterpress texture.

3 Likes

You had to send me down a rabbit hole!

2 Likes

I’ve noticed this trend too.

Other examples which jump out at you are the fonts used by the Guardian newspaper and BBC graphics on the news (a serif version of the BBC Reith custom font).

It seems that people have got bored of the plain-looking, clean fonts. A font with more “personality” now seems in vogue.

Even Apple’s San Francisco font is less sterile than the shades of Helvetica they used to use, although it would probably still be considered to be a fairly simple and inoffensive font that is quite similar to Helvetica.

Edit: Bringing it back on topic, that Triodos card looks uneven to me. Probably because of the lack of tipping on the embossed numbers. Personally, if the numbers are not tipped I think embossing looks wrong. It would be better to just print the numbers or put them on the back instead, in that case.

4 Likes

Wait isnt that the desgin for the Tesco World Mastercard Closed to new applicants since 2005 but my grandparents still have one and it looks like this but says world next to the mastercard logo. (Used to until the interchange caps came in have a higher point earning rate outside of tesco now its the same as all their cards)

My Tesco credit card is the retro clubcard desgin as its a old card.

1 Like

That it is!

I received my physical Zen card today. It’s one of my favourite cards I’ve owned. I’ll throw in an excerpt from the Zen thread where I talk about it on more detail, but if you’re a card collector like me and want to add a beautifully white one to your collection, I’d recommend getting the free trial just for the card.

1 Like

Starling cards are now made of 75% recycled plastic!

6 Likes

Quite a good conversation happening over here about this particular Starling card news:

2 Likes

Got a new Starling card today. The design has been subtly changed…

Old:

New:

‘Word Debit’ has been added, the contactless symbol has been moved from the back to the front of the card and the Mastercard logo has been updated to their new textless one.

Interestingly, the card in Apple Pay has also changed…

Old:

New:

I can’t say I’m a fan of the chunky new text. I think it looks a bit like a toy card, but I can understand why they’ve done it. The old design was dwarfed by most other bank cards’ logos in the collapsed view in Apple Pay

4 Likes

Another blank cluttering an otherwise clean layout with unnecessary text and iconography.

Why are so many banks allergic to minimalism? Plain, clean card fronts are so eloquently refreshing and beautiful imo.

4 Likes

Yes. Neither the contactless symbol nor the ‘world debit’ bollocks is necessary. OK the former might have been relocated after feedback, but, seriously, who doesn’t know their bank card is contactless these days?

Seriously, Starling, though. Just give us a purple Joint card and be done with it.

2 Likes

The World Debit on the front is unfortunately neccessary under MasterCard rules and Starling isn’t going to miss out on extra interchange just because people don’t like seeing it on the front of their cards.

2 Likes

Is this a new rule? As far as I’m aware, Starling cards have always been Word Debit (my old one certainly was), and yet have never featured this branding on them.

3 Likes

You can rebin a card product (basically change all of your cards from standard to world MasterCard’s) and you don’t have to send out new cards but after a set period of time all new cards have to have the branding (the time period varies by country and in some countries like Canada, you’re not allowed to rebin at all under MasterCard rules)

1 Like

As I understood World Debit has only been used in the U.K. vaguely recently (last couple of years). Before they just had standard for debit MasterCard, and WorldElite for premium (and probably others for niche uses). World Debit was used elsewhere in the world and was introduced here and gives a better interchange in return for banks making certain commitments over and above what they legally must for customers or providing more features than bare minimum.

1 Like

Speaking of extra interchange, I wonder how much more it is. Domestic interchange is still capped, UK->EU interchange was raised but I thought the new 1.5% applied to all tiers, in which case all that’s left is spending far abroad.

2 Likes

Yeah it won’t make much of a difference for purchases closer to home but it makes a difference in other places like Canada and the US.

https://www.mastercard.ca/content/dam/mccom/en-ca/Documents/English%20-%201-August-2020.pdf Just for example, a UK issuer would earn at least 0.25% extra on a World MasterCard purchase in Canada and 0.38% extra on a World Elite Card. And on card present transactions a World card would earn 0.75% more and a World Elite would earn 0.88% more.

When you’re talking millions of pounds in transactions, it’ll all add up for Starling.

1 Like

Interesting card from Santander in Mexico Santander is launching the first numberless credit card in Mexico (cardsinternational.com)

1 Like

Interesting that they combine the numberless aspect with a dynamic CCV (clearly easier to do when the CCV is saved in an app, rather than on the card).

I’ve always thought we are likely to end up with that solution, rather than the e-ink display built in to a card which Gemalto were trailing a few years ago.

1 Like