Sedcard for Models: What Goes On It, and Why the Print Version Is Not Enough

A sedcard — comp card, setcard, depending on who you ask — is a model's business card. One portrait on the front, a handful of images and your measurements on the back. Agencies have used them for decades because a casting director needs to answer one question quickly: does this person fit the job?

The format still works. What has changed is where casting actually happens. Most first contact now occurs on a phone, through a link, often from someone who is not an agency at all — an independent photographer, a small brand, a stylist building a team for one shoot. A printed card is useless in that conversation.

This guide covers what belongs on a sedcard regardless of format, how the photos should differ from each other, and how to handle the fact that you now need the same information in two places.

What a Sedcard Is For

A sedcard answers three questions in under ten seconds:

What do you look like? Not styled beyond recognition. What you look like.
What are your measurements? So somebody can check whether their clothes will fit you.
What kind of work do you do? Commercial, editorial, fitness, fashion, boudoir. Not every model does every kind, and pretending otherwise wastes everyone's time.

It is not a portfolio. A portfolio shows range and skill. A sedcard is a specification sheet with pictures. The most common mistake is trying to make one do the other's job — a card with twelve images shows less than a card with four, because nobody looks at twelve.

The traditional format is double-sided A5 (or 10×15 cm): one image on the front, three or four on the back with your details. That constraint exists because it works. Keep it even when the format is digital.

The Details to Include

Always:

Name, or working name
Height
Bust / chest, waist, hips
Dress or clothing size
Shoe size
Hair colour
Eye colour
Contact — email, or your agency if you are represented

Usually worth adding:

City and whether you travel
Languages
Relevant skills — dance, martial arts, horse riding, anything physical that occasionally decides a booking

Leave off:

Your home address
Your date of birth (state "18+" if needed, not your birthday)
Weight, unless you are specifically doing fitness work
Personal social accounts you do not use professionally

Be accurate with measurements. A stylist ordering clothes from your card and finding they do not fit on the day is a booking you do not get again. Measure properly, and update the card when your measurements change.

The Four Photos

The images should be different from each other. Four beautiful headshots is a wasted card. The set needs to cover:

1. The cover — a clean headshot. Natural makeup, hair away from the face, even lighting, neutral background. Skin tone, hair colour and eye colour clearly visible. Nothing stylised. This one photo does more work than the other three combined, and the instinct to make it the most dramatic image you own is the instinct to resist.

2. Full length. Head to feet, simple clothing that shows your actual shape — fitted, not baggy. Plain background. This is the image a client uses to judge proportion.

3. A body or three-quarter shot. Swimwear or fitted clothing if you shoot that kind of work, a three-quarter portrait if not. It should show line and posture.

4. A character or commercial shot. Something with expression and life — smiling, moving, interacting. This is where a casting director sees whether you can carry a mood rather than just hold a pose.

Some cards add a fifth, usually a contrasting look — different hair, a harder or softer styling — to show range.

What Makes the Photos Wrong

Over-retouching. A card that does not look like you creates a problem at the casting, not before it. Skin texture should survive.

Heavy styling on every frame. If all four images have elaborate makeup and dramatic lighting, the card shows a stylist's work, not yours.

Inconsistent editing. Four images with four different colour treatments look like four different people. Keep the grade consistent.

Old photos. If your hair is a different colour now, the card is wrong. This is the most common problem and the easiest to fix.

Print Is Still Real — And Still Not Enough

If you work with agencies or attend in-person castings, printed cards remain genuinely useful. Someone who has seen thirty people that day wants something physical to put on a table.

But printed cards have a structural problem. They are fixed at the moment of printing. Cut your hair, gain or lose a size, shoot something much better than anything currently on the card, and you have two choices: reprint, or hand out something inaccurate. Most people hand out something inaccurate, because reprinting costs money.

They also do not work at all for how most independent work is booked now. A photographer finding you online, a stylist assembling a team over email, a brand sourcing directly — none of them are in a room with you. They need a link.

The Digital Version of the Same Thing

A digital sedcard is not a PDF of the printed one. A PDF has all the same problems plus the indignity of being a download.

What it should be: a page, at a stable URL, showing the same four-photo structure and the same measurements, which you update in thirty seconds when something changes. Anyone you have ever sent the link to sees the current version.

This is the part Cullengo handles. Profiles are per role — if you model and also style, those are separate cards with separate details, because a stylist's card should not lead with your measurements. Each card carries the portfolio images you choose and arrange, your measurements with a public opt-in per field so you control exactly which numbers are visible, the shoot types you take, your travel radius and touring dates, and your rates if you choose to show them.

Two things are worth calling out specifically.

Measurements are opt-in individually. Bust and hips are on your card only if you turn them on. That should be your decision rather than a template's, and it matters more for some kinds of work than others.

The card is login-gated by default. Sedcards are deliberately not indexed by search engines. A person browsing the member directory can see you; a search engine cannot. For a document that carries your measurements and your face, that is the right default, and it is the opposite of how most free comp-card builders behave.

A sedcard you can actually keep current

Per-role profile cards with portfolio, measurements you opt into field by field, travel dates and rates. Update once — everyone with the link sees it.

Create your sedcard free

Keeping It Current

A sedcard is only as good as its last update. A practical rhythm:

After every shoot, review whether anything in the portfolio should be replaced. Four strong images beat four old ones plus two new ones.
When your appearance changes, update the same week. New hair colour, new length, significant change in measurements.
Every six months, re-check the details even if nothing obvious changed.
Before a casting period, make sure the cover shot reflects how you look right now.

If you are shooting specifically to refresh your card, tell the photographer that is the goal. A shoot planned around producing four specific images — clean headshot, full length, body, character — is a different shoot from one aiming at a single dramatic portfolio piece. Our creative brief guide covers setting that up, and the moodboard guide helps communicate it.

For Photographers Reading This

Shooting comp cards is steady, useful work and it is a different discipline from editorial. The brief is technical: even light, honest colour, minimal retouching, four clearly differentiated setups. The model needs images that are accurate, which is not the same as images that are flattering.

It also builds your network. A model whose card you shot shows it to everyone who books them, and your name travels with it.

Make sure they can actually get the images in a usable state. A card shoot delivered as a link that expires in seven days is a card shoot the model cannot use in three months. Our guide on how to share photos with your model after a shoot covers doing this properly.

FAQ

Q: Sedcard, comp card, setcard — what is the difference? Nothing. Regional terms for the same document. "Sedcard" is standard in Germany and much of Europe, "comp card" in the US, "setcard" occasionally in the UK.

Q: How many photos should be on a sedcard? Four or five. One cover, three or four on the back. More reduces its usefulness rather than increasing it.

Q: Do I need an agency to have a sedcard? No. Freelance models benefit more, because there is no agency profile doing the job for them.

Q: Should I list my rates? Optional, and it depends on your market. Listing them filters out mismatched enquiries and costs you some negotiating room. Many freelance models list a range or a starting rate.

Q: Is it safe to put my measurements online? It depends entirely on who can see them. On a public, indexed page, the answer is no. On a login-gated profile where you choose which fields are visible, this is standard professional information — the same data any agency profile carries.

Q: Can I make a sedcard myself? Yes. Canva and similar tools have templates, and Cullengo's profile builds the card from what you enter. What you cannot shortcut is the four photographs.

A sedcard is a small document doing a narrow job: letting somebody decide quickly whether you fit what they are casting. Four honest, well-differentiated photographs and accurate measurements will outperform a beautiful card that does not look like you.

The one thing worth changing about the traditional approach is the assumption that it is a printed object. Keep the format. Put it somewhere you can update.

Sources: CM Models — sedcard: what is it and how do I create one, Sedcard24 — comp card guide, Wikipedia — comp card