Business cards

J

jenkins

Limp Gawd
Joined
Dec 7, 2004
Messages
340
Quick question. Does anyone know a good place to get custom business cards printed? I've found a few places online, but I didn't know how well they did. Any recommendations would be appreciated. Thanks,


-jenkins
 
tried the phone book? i live in a small town and there are actually quite a few places for printing around here. infospace.com may help you on a broader spectrum
 
If you want convinience your local Kinkos does them. If you're printing under 100 this might be your best bet. Be sure to make sure the cards are industry standard size. I've seen them running cards smaller than they should be.
 
yeah it might have been a poor choice of analogy..but the point is .. kinkos just sucks...
find a smaller non-franchised print shop, they actually care
 
assume your talking lithography
rather than more esoteric processes

how many colors? how many impressions?
what kind of registry is required?
ink coverage, ect.

a local shop will be fine for a smaller run of a few colors w\ low ink coverage semi tight registration
and you gang up the impressions you need

but for full color having the cards ganged up on another job will likely be far more affordable
however whoever has the lions share of the space will be the recipient of the best color balance on press

and when it comes to a heavy coverage tight registration of multiple PMS color picks
well you wont find anything to gang that up with and generally requires a better printer than your mom and pop shop,
thats where you create a larger number of peices and gang them all up together and find a high quality printer

basically you start with the design and the reproduction process and look for a press that will match
 
i think he just wants straight printing.. press printing would cost too much for a bit of business cards.

save ure money and do some sort of diecut or add some foil
 
Inquisition said:
i think he just wants straight printing
Click to expand...

Im unfamiliar with "straight" printing :p

Lithography is by far the most common printing method
or was till Laser and Inkjet
think its safe to rule out Gravure and Flexographic Printing
Engraving, Letterpress, Serigraphy and Thermographic as well.

CMYK full color lithography is sold online by various printers
and at reasonably affordable rates when ganged up on a run with others
so thats what I was trying to get at, is that what he is asking about or not ;)
 
fair enough.. oops i wrote straight? i was thinking something and wrote it instead of what i intended.. i meant digital printing (laser or inkjet)
 
places like VistaPrint.com do alright.

Local printers can probably come close in price and give you design services, proofs and more control over the final product however for slightly more.
 
Hmm, ok guys. Thanks for all the advice, i'll shop around and see who is the least expensive.

Kinko's is already out of the running. They wanted $60 for 100 business cards.
 
at just a 100 cards your in the laser and inkjet range
especially when you consider you can gang up 10 card on one 8.5x11" sheet
thats ten sheets total and trim them out by hand

any mom and pop shop with run you considerably more than kinkos bid
consider they need to burn plates for each color, clean and setup the press for each color
and then cut the cards.

thus the difference between 100 cards and 2000 cards is just paper and an extra 5 minutes press time,
plus another 10 minutes to trim out the extra cards with a hydraulic cutter
 
The shop I work at can get 250 Thermographed (plasticy lettering that you can "feel" on the paper) cards, black color, white paper for $35 with the typesetting that we send out for.
Making it any other single color bumps the price to $40
You might find a shop that offers a similar service.

Beyond that, the minimum quantity is 500 cards, and that's typical of most shops that I know of. Prices will vary depending on what all needs done, but for comparison, our printing runs $69 for 500, any single color on just about any paper.
Just food for thought
 
I run a promotional/advertising business on the side. Due to the rules I can't make you an offer on the forums, but contact me off-forum and I'll give you a ballpark quote...

(mods if this isn't cool pls let me know! and accept my apologies! ...just trying to help a fellow [H]'er!)

I run an (almost) full service shop, everything from transfer/pad printing, sandblasting, printing, etc. I usually send my print requests off to a full print shop, but I get good prices.

Sabre's right, go with the smaller shops. You'll get (more) honest pricing.

I've purchased "clean edge" laser/inkjet cards before. The material is thicker. 10 cards to a sheet. There's no cutting, after printing the cards are 'peelable' off the sheet. They're die cut sheets and look purty nice.


G e o
 
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