If you’ve ever been to a sporting event or concert, you may have noticed that some people sport lanyards with cards on them with some identifying information. These look kinda like ticket stubs on steroids. In the trade, they are known as credentials. They let working media or VIPs access areas that the rest of us don’t get to go.
To make things exciting at the SuzerSpace, I like to whip up credentials for our “events”. We are homebodies, so New Year’s Eve for us was a run to the grocery and liquor store and then cooking up a meal of cheese enchiladas. But that doesn’t mean we can’t pretend.
Creating these is super easy:
Buy or borrow a lanyard holder. You can skip this step and just punch holes in the top and use yarn or ribbon if you like.
Set up your file. In whatever software you like create a box that is slightly smaller than the size of your holder. Or if you aren’t using a lanyard holder, make it whatever size you like.
Create your text, and add artwork and logos.
In this version, I decided to make the credential two-sided, one for New Year’s Eve and one for New Year’s Day. For best impact, keep the images and type large.
I set the NYE and NYD type in a large square face, and I sized it so it was slightly over the edges of my box.
That’s called “bleed” and it lets you trim the final printed piece without having to worry about a little edge of the paper showing if things don’t line up perfectly.
In my image here, you can see the green box, which shows the final trim size for my card. The crop marks match that box, and they are what I will use for cutting. See how the images bleed over the edge?
I usually “borrow” an image from the internet for the background. Technically, copyright rules prohibit this, but since this item is only for personal use I’m going to go into the gray area on that rule. For New Year’s Eve, I’ve used a photo of Times Square. I set the opacity of the photo to 30% so that the type on top is readable.
I like to print these out on 80# white smooth cover stock. It’s thick enough to stand up to a little wear even without a holder, but not so thick that it jams up the printer or is difficult to cut.
After they are printed, I trim them using an x-acto knife and a ruler, and then slide them into the holder. And presto! A boring evening suddenly becomes a VIP event.
