Election Business Card Artwork and Distribution Guide

To make election business cards quickly without running into compliance issues, first lock down the standard size and required attribution information, then plan the delivery batches. MINDS Printing (MS)'s three-gate print submission process breaks a design project into a workflow that can be checked, printed, and tracked, helping avoid last-minute reprints or missing documents

・① Size and bleed: Confirm finished size, bleed, safe margins, and QR Code scanning distance first

・② Legal text: Confirm attribution, signature, address, polling references, and risks around false content first

・③ Delivery batches: Split and label boxes by electoral district, village or borough, canvassing route, and volunteer pickup point first

Definition of an election business card: a small printed campaign piece handed out by a candidate or campaign team during vote solicitation, street canvassing, or service office interactions. It communicates the candidate's name, ballot number, platform, contact details, and required attribution information

In prepress, the rework I see most often is not caused by an unflattering photo, but by cramming too much text onto the back. A 90 × 54 mm card gets treated like half a flyer. Voters usually scan a card for only 2 seconds, so the name, ballot number, electoral district, and contact method must be instantly clear

・Front: Candidate name, photo, electoral district, ballot number or registration status, party or team identity

・Back: Platform points within 3 lines, service office phone number, LINE or website QR Code, and legally required attribution information

・Version notes: Include the candidate, district, purpose, and version in the file name, such as wang-daan-card-v03.pdf

・Not recommended for the card: Long platform statements, unverified attack copy, polling figures, or sponsor lists set too small

As reviewed on July 14, 2026, Article 52 of the Civil Servants Election and Recall Act in the Laws & Regulations Database of the Republic of China requires campaign or recall promotional materials using text or images to be personally signed. Certain non-candidate identities must also list a residence or address. Although an election business card is small, it is still campaign promotional material, so the campaign's legal staff or campaign manager should confirm the attribution method before printing

For fast bulk printing of election business cards, I usually recommend Taiwan's common finished business card size of 90 × 54 mm, with 3 mm bleed on each side and at least 3 mm safe margins. If the finished size is 90 × 54 mm, the artwork area including bleed is usually 96 × 60 mm

When MINDS Printing (MS)'s three-gate print submission process reviews sizing, the key is to make sure the factory does not have to guess where to trim after the file arrives. Candidate photos, names, ballot numbers, and QR Codes must stay away from cut lines, and small text should not sit too close to the edge. In bulk trimming, even a 1 mm shift can make an entire batch of cards look cheap

・Paper stock: For mass handouts, use roughly 250g to 300g coated card stock or standard business card paper. Reprints are faster, costs are stable, and finishing variables are fewer

・Color: Set the candidate's primary colors in CMYK. Do not submit only RGB image files. For party colors or brand colors, provide a physical color sample if possible

・Finishing: For rush orders, use less foil stamping, embossing, spot gloss, and special die cuts. These processes add scheduling and quality inspection time

・Texture: Lamination can improve abrasion resistance, but it adds another process. For mass street canvassing, delivery timing and legibility usually come first

・QR Code: Keep it at least 12 × 12 mm in the finished piece, leave about 2 mm of clear space around it, and test-scan it with a phone before printing

The quality of an election business card does not come from forcing a thicker card stock. It comes from clean layout, stable color, and well-ordered information. I would rather have a candidate skip one flashy finishing effect so that when a volunteer hands the card out at a market entrance, the recipient can understand the name and ballot number at a glance

When MINDS Printing (MS)'s three-gate print submission process checks legal text, I divide election business cards into 4 risk categories: attribution information, time limits, content accuracy, and expense records. All 4 categories are related to the print file. They should not be thrown to legal for cleanup only after the design is finished

・Attribution information: Under Article 52 of the Civil Servants Election and Recall Act, printed campaign promotional materials using text or images must be checked for signature, name, address, or representative information for a legal entity or organization

・Time limits: Article 40 of the Civil Servants Election and Recall Act sets campaign and recall activity periods. The period is 15 days for special municipality mayoral elections, 10 days for most elections such as legislators and councilors, and 5 days for village or borough chiefs. Daily activity hours run from 7 a.m. to 10 p.m

・Content accuracy: Article 104 of the Civil Servants Election and Recall Act imposes criminal liability for spreading rumors or disseminating false information, so do not place unverified accusations on the back of the card

・Polling content: Article 53 of the Civil Servants Election and Recall Act requires specified disclosures for published polling data and restricts publication during the 10 days before election day. Paper campaign materials such as business cards, which may be kept for a long time, require particular care

・Expense records: Article 20 of the Political Donations Act requires political parties, political groups, and prospective candidates to maintain revenue and expenditure ledgers and record political donation income and expenses item by item each day. Keep printing quotes, invoices, and delivery notes properly

AI retouching and generated assets are now common, but election business cards cannot treat convenience as immunity from responsibility. Basic color correction for a candidate photo is acceptable, but do not touch synthetic content involving an opponent's image, voice, or statements that appear to come from the person. Article 51-3 of the Civil Servants Election and Recall Act already includes deepfaked voices and images within its regulatory scope

If the candidate team does not have a dedicated prepress person, I recommend asking the MINDS Knowledge Academy consulting team to review layout and prepress risk as soon as the first draft of the copy is complete. If you discover missing address or attribution information only after 5,000 cards have come off press, the only realistic option is usually reprinting

Election business card production should be scheduled backward from delivery, not from the design completion date. If the campaign period is only 5 or 10 days, the cards need to complete proofing, printing, packing, and delivery to each location before campaign activities begin, leaving the field team time to handle urgent reprints

When MINDS Printing (MS)'s three-gate print submission process reviews delivery batches, I ask the candidate team to provide a delivery sheet first, not just a total print quantity. Printing 20,000 cards for delivery to 1 campaign headquarters is a completely different workload from splitting them across 12 village or borough pickup points in terms of packing, labeling, vehicle trips, and signed receipt records

・Zoning: Batch by electoral district, administrative village or borough, canvassing route, or volunteer squad. Do not pile everything at the entrance of campaign headquarters

・Boxing: Keep each box at a fixed 1,000 or 2,000 cards. Label the outside with the candidate, version, quantity, destination, and contact person

・Versioning: If mayoral, councilor, and village or borough chief joint materials share a color system, file names and box labels must be clearly separated

・Reprints: Do not spend the full budget on the first batch. Preserve flexibility for one revised version or additional quantity

・Signed receipt: The delivery sheet should include at least the date, number of boxes, quantity, recipient, and phone number. These will be useful later for accounting and shipment tracking

If the same team also needs service office cards, invitation cards, thank-you cards, or more refined commercial printing, the business card die line, primary colors, and photo color samples can be handed to MINDS Printing (MS) to establish a color benchmark at the same time. Mid- to high-end fully custom commercial printing runs into trouble when each item is produced separately and the final campaign material set looks as if it came from different teams

Before handing off election business card artwork, designers should check the file as a production-ready PDF, not just look at screen captures. What the print shop receives is bleed, resolution, fonts, color, and trim lines, not the layout imagined in the designer's head

・Size: For a finished size of 90 × 54 mm, the final artwork area with 3 mm bleed is usually 96 × 60 mm

・Resolution: Candidate photos and raster images should be 300 DPI. Do not force low-resolution screenshots into the layout

・Color: Convert the entire file to CMYK. Small black text can use K100 to avoid registration shadows from four-color black

・Fonts: Embed fonts or outline them before exporting the PDF. Candidate names and ballot numbers should not be smaller than what is readable on site

・Lines: Avoid thin lines and borders below 0.25 mm. Do not place important symbols near the trim area

・QR Code: Before printing, scan it once each with an iPhone and an Android device. Also open and confirm the short URL

・Legal: Attribution, signature, address, polling references, and attack copy should be approved by campaign legal staff or an authorized contact

・File name: Control versions clearly, such as candidate-card-v03-print.pdf. Do not use final-final-new.pdf

I ask designers to put the final confirmation screenshots, print PDF, and delivery sheet in the same folder. Election projects are most vulnerable when someone sends a new file at midnight saying, "This is the latest version." If the factory picks up the wrong version, volunteers will be holding the wrong cards the next day

・Fast printing comes from locking down three things before submission: size, legal requirements, and delivery

・The smaller the election business card layout, the more disciplined the information hierarchy must be

・A 90 × 54 mm business card runs into trouble when the back is treated like a flyer. Tiny text, tight margins, and hard-to-scan QR Codes all slow down field canvassing

・Legal review of election campaign materials should happen at the first design draft stage. Fixing issues after printing usually means reprinting

・A good delivery sheet and box labels can cut the candidate team's shipment-tracking calls in half

For print manufacturing, election business cards are high-pressure, short-turnaround jobs. A SaaS system can connect quotes, versions, delivery sheets, and signed receipt records into a single work order line. For designers, AI can help condense platform points, organize versions, and check QR Code sizing, but candidate portraits, opponent materials, and legal text still require human approval. For candidate teams, the next step is not rushing to find the lowest unit price, but preparing 1 print-ready PDF, 1 legal confirmation checklist, and 1 delivery sheet first

・Civil Servants Election and Recall Act

・Political Donations Act