Two Inks, One Card

Two Inks, One Card

Produce ONE image: a business card in clear plastic, and the card fills the entire image. Follow every line. Replace only the FIELDS block; everything after it is fixed.

First — do you have the fields?

If any field below still has braces around it, stop and ask. Put all the questions in one short message, and show the example under each one so they can see the shape of a useful answer. Wait for the replies, then draw. Never fill a brace yourself: a value you invented is a value nobody asked for, and it will look exactly as considered as the ones they did give you.

Ask in whatever language they are writing to you in. Translate the questions and the examples; do not make someone read English to tell you what they want.

The examples are only examples. If someone answers a question, use their answer; never fall back to the example because you prefer it.

If the fields are already filled in, ignore this and carry on.

Fields — replace these six lines only

• The company, and its line: {a name, and a short line under it} e.g. VIBARY / a vibe library
• The five-line contact block: {two address lines, a phone, an email, a web address} e.g. Studio 4, The Old Print Works · Bristol BS1 6QY · T (+44) 117 496 0210 · hello@vibary.ai · vibary.ai
• The ghost wordmark: {one short word} e.g. VIBE
• The person, and their role: {a name, and a title} e.g. MAYA ELLIOTT / Library Director
• The direct line: {a handle, and a domain} e.g. maya / @vibary.ai
• The tint: {the material's cast} e.g. the faintest cool grey, almost colourless

The card is the image

The card bleeds off all four edges. No rim, no bevel, no rounded corner, no drop shadow, no desk, no surround, no seamless studio sweep. Nothing in the frame that is not the card's own surface.

If any edge of the card is visible, the result is a photograph of a card. This is the card.

The depth law

Here is the problem this style hides, and the whole reason the template exists.

A clear card is proved by seeing through it. But the card fills the frame, so there is no background behind it and no cut edge in view — both of the usual proofs are gone. Asked for transparency with nothing to be transparent against, a model does the safe thing and returns a flat opaque grey panel. That is not a failure of rendering; it is the only answer the brief leaves.

So the material is carried by the one thing still available: distance between two layers of ink.

• The near layer — company, contact block, name, role, direct line — is printed on the top surface. Crisp, black, hard-edged, fully opaque.
• The under layer — the ghost wordmark — sits *beneath* the material. Paler, very slightly softer at its edges, and read through a thickness.
• Where they cross, the near layer is unmistakably nearer. A hairline of separation, the faintest lightening of the ghost as it passes under a solid letter.
• The surface's own sheen — a broad, very soft diagonal — passes over both layers equally, because it belongs to the top face.

Two depths of ink, and the card reads as clear plastic without a single thing behind it.

The material

• An uneven, very faint internal haze — cloudier in some regions, clearer in others. Never a flat even fill, which is what makes it look like paper.
• The stated tint only, at the lowest strength that still registers.
• No mirror highlights, no lens flare, no rainbow refraction, no visible scratches, no "plastic wrap" crinkle.

The layout

Landscape, and a modernist grid:

• Upper left: the company name, largest of the near layer, with its short line directly beneath at a much smaller size.
• Upper right: the contact block, five lines, left-aligned as a block, all one size.
• Lower left: the person's name, then their role beneath it.
• Lower right: the direct line, two lines, aligned to the right margin.
• Across the lower two thirds: the ghost wordmark, enormous, with both ends cut by the frame. It is the largest thing on the card and the quietest.

The type

One geometric sans throughout — the Helvetica, Futura, DIN family of feeling. Tight tracking, tight leading, nothing italic, nothing condensed, no second family. Every line reads cleanly at its size.

Never

• ✕ any visible edge, corner, rim or shadow of the card
• ✕ a background, a desk, a hand, a second card
• ✕ a flat even fill standing in for the material
• ✕ the ghost word and the near type sitting at the same depth
• ✕ colour, gradients, ornament, rules, icons or logos
• ✕ mirror reflection or rainbow refraction
• ✕ a ghost wordmark that fits inside the frame

The result

A card that could be handed over: five pieces of information in the places a designer would put them, and a material you can read purely from the distance between two inks.