Two A3 Strut Cards for the Twilio Partner Swag Store, Quoted in the Evening and Ready by Midday

The brief: a sign that stands on a counter, and cards people write on

The enquiry came in on a Thursday evening and named both items precisely: two A3 strut cards for a Partner Swag Store, and a run of cue cards carrying the Partner Connect artwork on one side, with the other side left blank for notes. That second sentence is worth more than it looks. A cue card printed on both sides is a different product from a cue card printed on one, and the person holding it at the event cannot fix the difference.

A strut card is the printed equivalent of a photo frame: a flat printed board with a separate easel strut fixed to the back, so the piece stands on a counter or a table without a separate display stand, a plinth or anything to lean on. It is what a showcard is when it has to hold itself up. For a swag store — a table of branded goods at a partner event — that is the whole job: the sign has to arrive, stand up on the surface it is given, and stay upright while people pick things up around it.

The question the customer asked before approving

Before the job went to print, the customer sent a reference image and asked a single question: would the strut look exactly like that? We confirmed the same evening that it would. That is the right question to ask about a strut card, and it is asked far less often than it should be.

The reason is that the printed face is the part everyone checks, and the strut is the part nobody checks until the card is standing up. What this customer did is the useful bit: a reference image went over with the enquiry, the question was asked before printing rather than after delivery, and the answer came back the same evening. Confirming a construction against a picture costs one email before printing, and there is no equivalent step available on the morning of the event.

Why the cue cards were printed on one side

The Partner Connect cue cards were printed on one side, with the reverse left blank for handwritten notes, because the customer asked for exactly that: the artwork on one side, the other side free to write on. That is a deliberate spec, and it has to be said out loud in the brief. Send a printer artwork and a quantity with nothing else stated, and a card can reasonably come back printed both sides, which is exactly what a card meant for handwriting must not be.

Stating it at the quote stage is what makes it a specification rather than a hope. A card printed edge to edge in a solid colour on both sides is a different object from one with an unprinted reverse, and which of the two arrives is settled at the order, not at the event. Whether a given unprinted surface takes a particular pen well is a separate question, and it is worth asking at the same time rather than finding out on the day.

Thirty cards instead of twenty, mid-run

While the job was in production the customer asked to add ten more cue cards, taking the run from 20 to 30, and the job still closed the same day it was confirmed ready. The practical point for anyone ordering cue cards, place cards or any short run of small-format pieces is to raise the number while the job is still open rather than once it has been trimmed and counted, because at that point the extras are a second job rather than more of the first one.

The same pattern runs through our other event work. On the conference name badges for Imperial College London, ten spare badges were added to the run for the same reason: a spare printed inside the original run costs a fraction of a reprint ordered the night before.

What happened, in order

Two things in that table are worth separating, because they are routinely confused. Ready and collected are different events: this job was finished on the Friday, and collection was agreed for the Saturday, at the customer’s pace rather than ours. If you are working back from an event date, it is the ready time that has to clear your deadline, and the difference between the two is explained in our guide on how print delivery works in London.

Ordered again six months later

In May 2026 Twilio ordered the Partner Swag Store strut card again, this time as part of a larger conference package that also took a second strut card at A5 and sixty A5 cue cards on 350 gsm board. A repeat order for the identical item is the most useful thing a case study can report about a display piece, because it means the first set did the job it was made for and the artwork was worth producing twice.

That larger package sat alongside the sort of work covered by our exhibition and conference graphics, and it is the same shape of job as the overnight backdrop we printed for an event at Olympia: one event, several formats, one deadline that does not move.

What to tell us when you order strut cards

• The finished size and the orientation. A3 portrait and A3 landscape take the strut in different places. Say which way up the card stands before the artwork is drawn.
• How many sides print. One side or two is a specification, not an assumption, and on anything meant to be written on it is the most important line in the brief.
• Where it will stand. A counter, a shelf or a table changes what the card has to cope with, so say which one it is.
• A reference picture if you have one. This customer sent one and asked whether the strut would match it. Confirming a construction against an image before print is the cheapest step in the whole job.
• Whether anything travels with it. Cue cards, cards, leaflets and giveaways are usually part of the same deadline, so quote them together rather than as an afterthought.

The strut cards and the cue cards were printed, trimmed and assembled at our London print shop for collection in person. Larger rigid pieces for the same kind of stand are covered by foam board printing, work needed against a tight deadline by 24 hour printing, and if the artwork is coming from a designer, our guide on what file format to send covers the rest.