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Before our customers can start using ID cards to secure their facilities, they need to invest in an ID card printer in order to create the ID cards in the first place. Choosing the right ID card printer is not as simple a decision as deciding between black and white and colour printing capabilities. There are multiple factors that need to be considered.

Here are the five things that we encourage all of our customers to look for in an ID card printer:

The type of ID card technology our customers will be using

If you plan on using magnetic stripe ID cards, then you shouldn’t buy a printer that can only print EMV cards — and vice versa. This is the most important factor to consider when choosing an ID card printer.

How many sides it prints on

The information that you require to be printed on your organization’s cards can vary and you may require information to be printed on more than one side; in this case, you will need a double-sided ID card printer. If, on the other hand, you know that you will only require ID card printing on a single side of each card, it’s better to invest in a single-sided ID card printer.

How many ID cards our customers will need

You probably plan on printing more than one ID card for your organization, but just how many will you need produced at one time? This is an important factor to consider, because printing volume capabilities of ID card printers varies drastically (some can only print less than a hundred cards per day, whereas others can print up to five hundred cards per day). Keep this in mind and do not skimp out on cost if your ID card printing needs are large.

How durable our customers’ ID cards will be

When you are printing ID cards for full-time students or employees, then you need the cards to remain durable so you do not end up paying an exorbitant amount for ID card replacements. To this end, you need a printer that can laminate your cards for extra protection. If you only need ID card printers for temporary ID cards, on the other hand, then card longevity isn’t really an issue, so lamination isn’t a necessity for your next printer.

The aesthetic quality of the card prints

This is where a company should start deciding whether they want black and white or full colour ID cards. For our customers, this particular concern is never a factor, because all of the card printers that we offer print in full colour and black and white. In addition to the colour, you must also consider the print method, which also affects the aesthetic quality of the cards. The two options to choose from here are direct-to-card (DTC) and reverse transfer (re-transfer).

DTC ID card printers will leave a white border at the edges of the card, instead of printing on the whole thing. In exchange for this lower image quality, it includes a simpler printing process.

Re-transfer ID card printing prints on the entire card, creating a higher quality image. It involves two steps, taking a little bit longer than DTC.

Allow us to help you choose the right ID card printer for your organization’s needs

Regardless of whether you need a set of ID cards printed for students, visitors or employees, our team at Avon Security Products can provide the perfect ID card printer for your needs. Contact us to get the printing process started.

Creating brand awareness is something at the top of every company’s objectives. You need to make sure that people know what you do and make sure that your name and logo are the first things that come to customers’ minds when it’s time to make a purchase. This is where custom lanyards can make a big impact on a very small piece of promotional real estate.

Here is a preview about how our products can mean big things for your own business:

• Corporate Environments:  If your business is protected by electronic locks or your employees are required to show their badges to access certain areas of your facility, you’ll enjoy our selection of badge accessories that are perfectly made for the corporate environment. Created with the idea of convenience in mind, badge reels and breakaway custom lanyards are ideal for employees who would otherwise become frustrated from the constant fumbling around that could take place. Badge reels are a common favourite among many of our clients because they allow employees to seamlessly move from one location to another without needing to dig for that piece of plastic. Similarly, our lanyards are designed to maintain accessibility throughout the day, especially if they are displayed around employees’ necks. Each of these items free your employees’ hands and improves ease of entry throughout your building.

Keep in mind, that no badge reel design is created equally. Our assortment is diverse enough to suit any staff member’s needs. Many people like the traditional belt clip because it simply slips over the existing belt loops found on slacks and jeans. But what happens if you work in an environment where belt loops aren’t common? Badge reels with clips are perfect for people who wear scrubs and other outfits that don’t come with belt clips. Custom lanyards, of course, are another great alternative because they go perfectly with any outfit!

• Events:  Big events and conferences may require badges and tags that need to be on your employees throughout the duration of the show. Our custom lanyards not only make it easy for your staff to keep essential items on hand and easily transportable, but they offer your company the opportunity to be seen by potential customers. After all, attendees of big events are generally interested in the same products, services and industries. Having our custom lanyards displayed where hundreds of other professionals from your area of expertise will be an excellent way to generate brand awareness. 

Custom lanyards make great promo giveaways at events, too. Not only will your own staff benefit from having them on hand, but every other attendee will need a convenient place to store his or her badge and personal information, too. We can help you design lanyards that advertise your company alone or are targeted to specific conferences and events.

• Security: What happens when an employee accidentally misplaces his or her badge? If your company’s badges are floating around in the hands of those who shouldn’t have them, your business is being put at a significant risk. Each employee and piece of information housed in your facilities becomes vulnerable when badges are lost.

When it comes to security, custom lanyards serve a dual purpose. To begin with, they help prevent badges and personal information from being misplaced. They can also contain your company’s information, giving them the potential to be returned.

At Avon Security Products, we’re proud to offer a huge assortment of custom lanyards and accessories. Shop our selection today!

With an increased focus on security for businesses and schools, photo identification cards have become one of the premier solutions. These cards allow screeners at entrances to quickly determine whether the individual has credentials to enter the facility. Photo identification cards are a vital component of safe school environments or office buildings regardless of the industry. In a matter of fact, it’s extremely common for hospitals, schools and businesses to use photo identification. These simple and inexpensive tools offer a wide array of security benefits and versatility.

Basic Identification

One of the top ways photo identification cards bolster security is basic identification. In any case, there are several students at your school or employees at your business. As a result, it can be difficult to know each person by their name. When they wear photo identification cards, you get to know the individual’s name and other details printed on the card. Employees that feel recognized by management and others within the organization will feel a sense of belonging, which will bolster morale.

Access Control

In any case, everyone within the organization may not need access to all rooms. When you use photo identification cards, you increase the security of your business with access control. Whether it is a complex access control computer system or a security guard, photo identification cards allow you to make sure you protect restricted areas. To use it with a computer based access control system, simply encode the cards with the correct barcode to give the employee access to the room.

Accountability

When you use photo identification cards equipped with barcodes, you can keep track of where your employees are. In the event there is a security breach or an event, you can check the log to see who was in the facility at the time of the incident.

Manage Time

Another benefit of photo employee identification cards is they can be designed and used as a way of clocking in and out for payroll uses. When you use a magnetic stripe coding, smart card coding, or barcodes on the back of the card, employees can simply scan their card when they arrive and leave work. As a result, you will reduce the necessary paperwork required for clocking in and out, increase the accuracy of payroll reporting, while eventually reducing costs.

Easy to Create and Design

In addition to an image of the employee or student, you can quickly implement several design elements into the photo identification card. Whether it’s a logo or any other image, you can implement this design with your photo identification card.

Implementing a photo identification card system offers the business several benefits. When your business produces these cards with an in house identification card printer system, you can completely control the production, distribution and use throughout your organization. Regardless of the industry, custom identification cards offer several security and benefits for the business.

With Avon’s identification card systems, your business will be equipped with everything necessary for designing and implementing an effective photo identification card program. The identification card systems come with a professional card printer, ID software and all of the printing supplies you need to get started. For more information about photo identification cards can bolster the security at your school or business, contact Avon Security Products today.

Today, ID card systems are more versatile than ever, offering businesses, hospitals, schools, government facilities and more a wide array of options. With a photo ID card system in place, the possibilities are only limited by your creative thinking and ingenuity.

ID Card System for Business

Today, businesses must exist in an environment filled with ever changing demands. An identification card system helps businesses stay relevant with technology. Not only do these systems help businesses identify employees, it also provides an efficient and highly accurate way to track time. ID card systems are also ideal for allowing or denying access to secure areas and provide protection against unauthorized ID card reproduction. Best of all, plastic cards last exponentially longer than older laminated paper cards. You can add signature panels, holographic overlays, and even ghost photos as an added layer of security.

Secure Schools

If your school budget is limited, it doesn’t mean you can’t have an effective photo identification card system in place. In a matter of fact, having a high volume in-house system can save the school a significant amount of money down the road. Whether it’s producing student ID cards, smart student cards, or student ID cards for library use, you can combine all of the campus uses into one card. For example, you can use your ID card system for faculty to monitor personal photocopying, computer lab printing, and more. When your school has unscheduled visitors, you can quickly produce an ID card, so you will always know who is walking the halls.

Stay in Compliance

Several industries are mandated by the government and have certain security measures in place. Whether it’s for access or identification, an ID card system meets the needs. For example, HSPD-12 requires all government agency employees to have a smart card. On the other hand, the HITECH Act has its own set of security measures to protect medical records from breaches and nefarious individuals. With an ID card system, you can make sure your facility is in full compliance. Based on the needs of the organization and the mandates you must follow, an ID card system is the ideal solution.

Customer Loyalty Programs

With a single ID card system, you can start and manage your very own customer loyalty program. In addition, you can store each customer’s purchases and spending activity to hyper focus your marketing efforts. Best of all, customers who carry your card are acting as a constant advertisement for your business. Instead of producing handwritten gift cards, you can use a card identification system printed with a magnetic strip to track who issued the card, when it was issued, and its value.

Healthcare Industry

In the healthcare industry, convenient access and security are paramount. Patients and their families require peace-of-mind from the time they check-in until they check out. An identification card system provides this secure and hassle-free environment. Internally, you can use the card system to identify each employee and their title, so you can manage their access to medical documents, which will ensure federal compliance.

An ID card system offer several other benefits outside of the standard identification. Instead you can use it for time tracking, customer rewards, building access and much more. For more information on the many benefits of an ID card system, contact Avon Security Products today.

Using ID card systems is a great way to improve security and streamline access for authorized personnel. Before one of our customers can implement an ID card system, however, they need ID cards. Producing ID cards can easily be done on site, but this requires an ID card printer.

There are many different types of ID cards and an equally varying number of ID card printers to produce them. As such, our customers need to carefully consider the type of ID card printer that will suit their unique needs. The three factors that you need to consider when choosing an ID card for your business are capability, quality and speed.

1. Capability

Capability is number one on our list because it is the most important factor to consider when choosing an ID card printer (if the printer can’t complete the basic task that you need it to do, then it is worthless to you). Here is how you determine whether or not a printer’s capabilities meet your needs:

Single or double-sided printing

If you only plan on printing on one side of your ID cards, then this is not an issue, because single and dual-sided ID card printers will work just fine for you. If, on the other hand, you need to print on both sides of your organization’s ID cards, then you need to make sure that your printer has double-sided printing capabilities.

Colour versus black and white printing

Not all ID card printers have colour printing capabilities. You need to actively seek out a colour ID card printer if you need to have ID cards in full colour.

ID card encoding capabilities

Chances are that you plan on investing in a complete ID card system to scan your employees’, students’ and/or visitors’ ID cards. However, if your actual ID cards don’t work with your system, then it will all be for naught. To accommodate your organization’s unique needs, different ID card printers can encode using different technologies. Whether you plan on using a magnetic stripe, EMV or some other ID card technology, you need to make sure that your printer can produce ID cards with those capabilities.

2. Production rates

In addition to having ID cards that work, you need to have enough available for everyone who needs to use one. To that end, you need to make sure that your chosen ID card printer can print ID cards fast enough to suit your needs. If, for example, you need thousands of ID cards to be printed for your entire staff or a constant influx of students, then you should invest in an ID card printer that can produce hundreds of ID cards in a single day. If, on the other hand, your total ID card needs are moderate, then you should consider price over printing rate.

3. Quality

You also need to consider how durable and aesthetically pleasing you want your ID cards to be. To that end, consider the following:

Laminated printing capabilities versus no laminating capabilities

Lamination will protect your ID cards from all types of damage for a long time, so invest in a laminating ID card printer if you plan on keeping your cards for a long time.

Reverse transfer (re-transfer) printing versus direct-to-card (DTC) printing

Re-transfer printers print to the entire card, whereas less expensive DCT printers leave a less attractive white border around the cards.

Make sure that you choose the right ID card printer for your organization’s needs

Allow our team at Avon Security Products to help you make the right ID card choice. Contact us to learn more.

Having a reliable ID card processing system is critical for consistent facility security and access for your employees, students and visitors; merchants need a good card processing system to conduct business. A part of getting the right card system is choosing the right card technology for your organization’s needs. Two of the best card technologies that we provide our customers with are EMV chip cards and magnetic stripe cards. Before our customers choose one or the other, we help them choose which technology works best for them by comparing and contrasting the pros and cons of each.

What is a magnetic stripe card?

A magnetic stripe card is the most well-known card system that is also known as a swipe card. As the name suggests, it includes a magnetic stripe that is typically found on the back of cards such as identity cards, driver’s licenses, bank cards and more. The magnetic stripe is swiped through a reader that understands each card’s unique information and data. 

Pros of magnetic stripe cards

Inexpensive to implement

Due in part to the fact that magnetic stripe technology has been popular at least since World War II and is inexpensive for our customers to implement.

Easy to duplicate

When our customers need more than one copy of a specific card, magnetic stripe technology is a great solution, because it can be copied with the flick of a wrist.

Cons of magnetic stripe cards

Cards can be rendered unusable relatively easily

Although they are generally very reliable, magnetic stripe cards are not difficult to damage. A small scratch or exposure to the wrong type of magnetic force can sometimes render a magnetic stripe card completely unusable; this can cause a problem for ID card access. For example, some cell phone will deactivate the magnetic stripe if the two items come in contact. However, the better the quality, the better the magnetic stripe system will perform. 

Easy to counterfeit

Magnetic stripe cards are not hard to copy; while this is a benefit, as discussed earlier, it is also a drawback. A counterfeiter can duplicate the relatively simple information stored on a magnetic stripe card with little more than a casual swipe.

What is an EMV chip card?

EMV chip technology works by embedding a small computer chip into the ID card instead of using a magnetic stripe. The acronym EMV is derived from the names of its creator companies (Europay, Mastercard and Visa).

Pros of EMV chip cards

• Supports dynamic authentication

By supporting dynamic authentication, an EMV chip card makes it much more difficult for someone to steal the data it stores.

Encrypts your data

Because the EMV system uses a computer chip to transmit data, everything can be encrypted for additional card security.

Difficult to counterfeit

One of the biggest threats that concern our customers is the risk of fraudulently copied cards. As they do not include an easily scanned magnetic strip, our EMV chip cards cannot be easily copied.

Cons of EMV chip cards

• It is a little more expensive

In order to gain the benefits of our EMV chip card solutions, our customers often have to invest in more modern technology, which can cost a little bit more than magnetic stripe card systems.

• It is not easy to duplicate

Although being difficult to duplicate provides some great security benefits, this adds an additional step to the process when an ID card is being replicated for any legitimate reasons.

As we guide our customers through the card technology selection process, we make sure that they understand their options and select the best system for their needs. Contact us today for more information!