- What it is
- A swing tag die-cut from a bonded board whose middle sheet is a colour, punched for a cord or a cable tie. Because the tag is cut on every side, the core shows as a continuous stripe around the whole silhouette and as a ring inside the punched hole — the two places on the object a hand actually touches. The faces can then be left almost bare, which is the reason the format is chosen: it looks considered without carrying any printed decoration at all.
- What it is printed on
Bonded duplex or triplex with a coloured core. Kraft board is the honest alternative where the brown itself is the colour and no seam is wanted, and it behaves quite differently: the edge is fibrous rather than striped, and the tag is lighter and softer in the hand.
- Bonded duplex, 600 gsm bonded0.72 mmA coloured core between two printable faces — the stripe at the edge is the entire design.
- Bonded triplex, 900 gsm bonded1.24 mmWhere the tag has to be rigid enough to hang dead straight and take a day of handling.
- Kraft board, 350 gsm0.46 mmThe unbonded alternative: no stripe, no seam, and the brown does the same job the core was doing.
- How it feels
- Rigid and square, with an edge that reads as three distinct layers under a thumbnail. The punched hole is the tell — a bare ring of core colour inside a printed face — and it is the detail people turn the tag over to look at. A bonded tag also hangs still rather than swinging, which reads as quality on a rail and matters more than it sounds.
- What it suits
- Retail hang tags, gift and hamper labelling, packaging and box tags, price-free product tags on a display, and event or exhibitor passes that need to survive a day of being handled. It does not suit a tag that has to be written on after it is attached, because the printed faces are closed, and it does not suit a very small tag, where a bonded caliper stops being elegant and starts being a chip of board.
- Lead time
- Standard turnaround is 7–14 working days. A cutting forme, a foil block, an embossing die or a screen made for the first time is made before anything can run; a tool already held is not.
- The common mistake
- Putting the cord hole too close to the edge. A tag is pulled, not held, and a hole with only a few millimetres of board between it and the trim tears out the first time somebody yanks it — and on a bonded board it fails along the bond line rather than through the fibre, so it delaminates as it goes. Move the hole inboard, radius the corners near it, and specify an eyelet on anything that will be handled all day.
Print idea
Coloured-core swing tag
A tag cut from bonded board with a coloured middle ply, so the only colour on an otherwise plain piece is the stripe running round its edge and ringing the cord hole.
Standard turnaround is 7–14 working days.
What coloured-core swing tag is
A swing tag die-cut from a bonded board whose middle sheet is a colour, punched for a cord or a cable tie. Because the tag is cut on every side, the core shows as a continuous stripe around the whole silhouette and as a ring inside the punched hole — the two places on the object a hand actually touches. The faces can then be left almost bare, which is the reason the format is chosen: it looks considered without carrying any printed decoration at all.
Bonded duplex or triplex with a coloured core. Kraft board is the honest alternative where the brown itself is the colour and no seam is wanted, and it behaves quite differently: the edge is fibrous rather than striped, and the tag is lighter and softer in the hand.
- The printed face, drawn in this stock’s own shade and its own surface structure.
- The cut edge, drawn at the estate scale of 1 mm = 22 px.
- The bond seams — 2 of them, between 3 sheets. This is why a board this thick exists at all.
- The coloured core, showing as a continuous stripe around the silhouette and as a ring inside the punched hole.
The specification
Six fields, and the last one is the useful one.
The same six questions are answered for every entry in this section, in the same order, so two objects can be compared without reading two pages of prose. The mistake is stated last and stated plainly, because it is the one that costs a reprint and it is the reason this page is worth sending to a colleague.
Where this sits.
Every entry is indexed three ways, because a buyer arrives knowing the occasion, the object or the material and almost never all three.
- Format
- Material and effect
Also worth looking at
- Die-cut shapesStandard turnaround is 7–14 working days.
- Bonded duplex and triplex cardStandard turnaround is 7–14 working days.
- Foil blocking on kraft and dark boardStandard turnaround is 7–14 working days.
- Every service, groupedSpecifications, stocks and finishing
- Every print idea, indexed three waysThe section index
- The materials libraryCaliper, weight and what each finish costs
Send the specification for this, and it comes back quoted.
Every job is quoted from its specification — stock, quantity, sides, finish, size and deadline.
- Quantity
- Stock — or the feel you want, if you do not know the stock
- Sides printed
- Finish
- Flat and finished size
- The deadline
Artwork is welcome but not required to start. Email sales@ezprint.com.sg if you would rather attach files.