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Card designs

How a card design gets onto a card product: what to send, who approves it, and what you see.

A card design is not uploaded to the platform. Artwork is approved through the card scheme, and the platform records what that approval produces. This guide covers that path from your side: name the design, send the artwork, and what you see once it is approved.

What a design is

Two card products can share a BIN, an account range and every setting and still be different products, because the cards look different: "Blue" and "Red" on the same range are two products. The design is what makes them different, so each card product carries one. Every card issued from a product shows that product's design.

A design has two parts:

  • Its name — yours. You set it in the console.
  • Its references — what the approval and the production hand back. An organisation admin attaches them in the console once they exist.

A different design is a different card product. To offer a second look on the same range, create a second product and name its design.

Name the design

In the console, open Card products, choose the product, and use Name the design in the Design panel. Pick a name that tells your products apart ("Blue", "Metal", "Launch edition"). The name is one line of text, at most 100 characters.

You can rename a design until a reference is attached to it. After that the name is fixed for good, because every reference points at that design's artwork and every card issued from the product shows it. A different design is a different card product.

The design is set in the console only. The public API does not carry it.

Send the artwork

Send the artwork for each design to Rigid. The file problems below are the most common reason a design is rejected, and none of them is a brand rule:

  • Vector artwork — an Adobe Illustrator (.ai) file. Not a PNG, a JPEG or a PDF.
  • CMYK or spot colours, with fonts converted to outlines.
  • Any embedded images at 300 dpi or more.

Then the scheme's rules, which a design must follow exactly:

  • Use the scheme's brand mark exactly as the scheme supplies it. Do not recolour it to match your palette, stretch it, or add shadows or gradients. Visa, for example, allows its mark only in Visa Blue, white, silver, gold or black.
  • Place the mark only where the scheme allows, with its clear space and at no less than its minimum size. Visa, for example, allows any corner of the card front, or beside the chip, centred on the chip's height (not for the Premium Visa Brand Mark). Both Visa rules are from the Visa Physical Card Brand Standards (September 2025).

Card dimensions, bleed, safe area, and the keep-out areas for the chip and the contactless antenna come from the card manufacturer's own artwork template, not from this guide. Ask Rigid for it before you start.

Approval

  1. Rigid reviews the artwork against the points above.
  2. Rigid submits it to the bureau — the card manufacturer that prints your cards — which checks that it can be printed, and the design goes through the scheme's approval.

There are two separate reviews: the scheme checks brand compliance, and the card manufacturer checks that the file can be printed. A design can pass one and fail the other, so plan for more than one round.

Attach the references

Once the artwork is approved and produced, Rigid sends you its references. An organisation admin attaches each one in the console: open Card products, choose the product, and use Attach beside the reference in the Design panel. The panel lists:

  • Scheme approval — the scheme's reference for the approved design.
  • Digital card art — the reference for the artwork a phone wallet shows for a card.
  • Card stock — the card manufacturer's code for the printed card.

Each reference comes from a different system, so they can arrive at different times. A reference can be replaced, but once one is attached the design's name is fixed: a different design is a different card product.