QR Code on a Visiting Card: 15 mm on the Back That Opens Your Page

What the code on a visiting card opens

A visiting card measures 85 by 55 millimetres. The front carries your name, your trade and your phone number in type. The back is usually blank. That blank field is where a QR code on a visiting card belongs, and the code should open one page.

Decide on that page before you draw the code. For a cafe owner it is a short page with the cafe name, the phone number, a map pin and a button that saves the contact to the phone. For a printer it is the same page with shop hours under the number. The code does not hold any of this. It opens the page, and the page shows it.

Keep it to one page. A code that opens a full website front page loses the reader at the door. They scanned a card to reach a person, so the page should put the number first and the save button right under it. Anything else can wait for a second tap.

Why the back, not the front

The front is already full. Type on a card sits at 7 to 9 points, and the eye needs space around it. A 15 millimetre code on the front crowds the name or pushes it off centre. On the back the code has the whole 85 by 55 field to itself.

The back also gives the code a clean quiet zone, which is the plain margin around the squares. Centre the code, or set it to the right with one short line of text to its left that says what it opens. A line such as Scan to save my number does the job. Set that line in the same type as the front, at 7 point, and keep it 3 millimetres clear of the code.

Print only one code on the back. One card, one code, one page. A second code for a second purpose halves the attention each one gets, and most people scan neither.

Fifteen millimetres, and why not smaller

A card is held close when it is scanned. Most people bring the phone to about 0.15 metres from the card. The working rule is that a code should be at least one tenth of the scanning distance, which puts the floor at 15 millimetres for a card. That is the size to draw it at, measured across the dark squares and not counting the margin.

The squares inside matter as much as the outer size. A short web address makes a code of 25 squares a side. At 15 millimetres each square is 0.6 millimetres wide. Offset printing holds that cleanly, and a digital press at 300 dots per inch holds it too. Push the code down to 12 millimetres and each square falls under 0.5 millimetres, where ink spread on uncoated card starts to close the gaps between them.

A long address makes the problem worse. Add tracking text to the address and the code grows to 33 squares a side, so each square shrinks to 0.45 millimetres at the same 15 millimetre size. A dynamic code solves this. It carries a short address of its own and opens your page from there, so the squares stay large.

Leave 2 millimetres of plain card around all four sides of the code. Nothing prints in that margin, not a border, not a logo, not the text line. Keep the whole code at least 5 millimetres from the trim edge so the cutter cannot clip it.

Contrast on card stock

Print a dark code on a light card. Black on white reads best. Cream and ivory stock read nearly as well. A light code on a dark card is an inverted code, and while many phones read it, some older ones do not, so stay with dark on light for a card that has to work for everyone.

Keep the code in plain black ink, set as 100 percent black and not a rich black built from four inks. Rich black looks deeper on a proof, but a small shift between the four plates fattens every square by a hair, and at 0.6 millimetres a hair matters.

Foil and metallic inks mirror the light, and the camera sees a bright smear instead of squares, so the code never goes in foil. Gloss lamination adds glare under shop lights. If the card must be gloss, take the code up to 18 millimetres. Matte lamination and plain uncoated card need no change.

Brown kraft card is popular and has weak contrast. Print a white box of 20 by 20 millimetres first and set the black code inside it. Linen and other textured stocks break the edges of small squares, so take the code to 18 millimetres there as well.

Setting it up in five steps

Build the page first. One screen, your name, your number as a tap-to-call line, the save-contact button, and a map pin if you have a counter. Open it on your own phone and make sure every tap works before any card is printed.

Make a dynamic code that opens that page. Export it as a vector file, SVG or PDF, not as a PNG saved from a screen. A screen PNG looks sharp at 72 dots per inch and turns soft at press size.

Place the vector on the back of the card at 15 millimetres, with the 2 millimetre quiet zone and the text line beside it. Set the ink to plain black.

Order one proof before the run. Scan it with three phones, one of them a few years old, under the shop's own light and again under a desk lamp. Each scan should open the page within a second and show the number first.

Print the run only after the proof passes. A run of 500 cards costs about the same as a run of 200, so most people print 500 and keep them in the drawer.

When your number or your shop changes

Cards outlive the details on them. A number changes, a second counter opens, hours move for the season. With a static code the drawer of cards is waste. With a dynamic code the printed squares stay the same and the page they open is changed from your account, so the 500 cards keep working.

If you sell from a counter and also take orders online, tell us where you sell and the page can carry both, with the map pin for the counter and the order link under it. You can order a dynamic code for your card at https://buyqrcode.com/ and point it at the page the same day. Use code STARTUP10 for 10% off one order per account. It is valid until 31 December 2026 or for the first 100 uses on this site, whichever comes first.

Open the page once a month from a card in your own pocket. If the number has changed and the page has not, fix the page and the whole stack of cards is current again.