anyone have any experience with producing business cards?

I need to know the specific height and width of a standard size business card and also wanted to know where would be a good but cheaply priced place to print out the business cards...

can I just take a disk with a PSD (photoshop file) in it, and will they be able to print hundreds of copies or how does it work?

and how much are business cards to print out?

ps. i don't need it designed or anything, just printed out by the masses :)

You can measure a business card to get the dimensions. You'll find 2 x 3 1/2 inches to be the usual size.

Check with local printers as prices vary. Many Office Depots, Office Maxs and similar stores have printing centers.

Don't expect to be able to give them your card on a disk. many are not equipped for it. Depending on the card, they may just take a picture of it and reproduce it.

Yes, they can print hundreds or even thousands, as many as you want.

The cost of the card will depend on several things, the quantity, the stock, color, number of colors, and whether there are multi-color objects. They require separation and you can save by doing the separating in Photoshop.

its definately gonna have some color/text/graphics on there... but one problem is that my printer is a POS (hehe) and it can't print out anything with graphics on it

so how would I go about taking whatever I want over there because i really want the text/graphics to look clear as possible and if they take a picture of what my printer printed out... lol, that would be a big mess

also, by separation... if i have different layers (since using photoshop), you mean i should print each layer out on its own?

thanks :)

You really should talk to a printer about this. It has nothing to do with web hosting and you have so many questions that only they can give you specific answers to.

Separations means separating the colors in layers as they are printed separately.

When you talk to printers in your area, you can ask them if they accept copy on disk. Be sure to ask the format as some may use Macintoshes, while others may be more mainstream.

alpha,

Yes Duster is correct. In the real world the majority of printing places use Mac's so you'll need to save as a file they can use. In general try to use .eps and .tiff as they can be read by both PC and Mac If in doubt just save it into as many formats as you can (depending on disk space). You could walk in with a .psd file but they are going to need to 'process' it a little

For layering, the most effective for cost plan is a two color business card. Three if you include the card itself. (eg, white card, blue logo, and black text).

Pricing goes down a lot the more you get printed. The hardest part is the first one. Once that's set up it's just a matter of printing by the thousand. Less than 3-400 and it's not too cost effective. 400+ works out cheaper (per card). Of course, if you print 10 000 cards, only ever use 40, and then change them, that's not going to save money :)

Try to go for a bold, simple design not isn't too cluttered. People respond to a card they can just glance at and see what it's about. (Rank, name, serial number - you get the idea) Also, you may want to ask about paper style. A lot of the time you can get textured or marbled cards for the same price as plain white. Personally I've always liked slightly bumpy, or crosshatched cards. You get an immediate sense of something when you pick it up - never under estimate the power of a 'tactile reaction' *lol*

The most important lesson you'll ever learn regarding people and business cards is to go to a bookstore, and look for Brett Easton Ellis' "American Psycho" - about half way through is a great piece on business men and their business cards :)

Greg Moore

I'm sure you can find some that have a E-mail address, Just ask them if you can E-mail the picture to them if you need to. If your going to upgrade that printer anytime soon then just get a pretty nice color laserjet and make your own cards. If you use a inkjet and the ink gets wet it will cause the ink to run. So I wouldn't print them out myself

Agreed.

If you're going to do them yourself make sure you're using some quality hardware. The last thing you want to do with a business card is make it look like a home job. Quite often a potential customer may disappear for a while and only get back to you using the card as a reference. If they have a stack of them and yours is the one that's runny and unprofessional it'll probably end up in the bin.

Greg Moore

There are a *lot* of business card printing companies on the web, and almost all of them accept electronic files. One I've had very good luck with in the past is ExtraValue (www.extravalue.com). The prices are excellent. The only complaint I have with them is that you have to order a huge number of cards (they only sell cards in 2000 card increments), but the price is great. They do not, however, accept American Express.

Last time I ordered cards, because I didn't want or need 2000 of them, I went through http://www.printingforless.com. The service was excellent, the price was good (though not as good as ExtraValue.com), and the card quality was excellent. No complaints from me about them at all.

If you just want straight black&white cards (no color), BusinessCards.com has been decent for me. But I prefer color cards, which they don't do.

VistaPrint.com has a program where you can actually get some cards printed free. I haven't gotten any for my business, but know a couple people who got cards for personal use from there and the cards came out reasonably well.

Anyway, if you run a search at Google for "color business cards", you'll see hundreds of different companies that sell them over the web. And ordering from the web is always significantly cheaper than going with a local company because the local printing companies have much higher overhead and lower volume than the on-line companies.

Good luck,

Jason

If they want it as EPS then you are going to have to have a CD Writer handy (Doesn't everbody now?) as EPS files are huge - our logo alone was 33mb.

Our business cards were sent in as a quark document with the relevant EPS files for the images used back and front as well as any fonts that were used.

Another thing to make sure of is that you have used Pantone colours, if you stick to the Pantone pallete then you can't go wrong and you can be sure that it will come out like it is supposed to be.

We had 500 cards produced as full colour front (Logo and motto), black and white back (contact details) with Matt varnish on the front on nice thick art board, they cost us £150 but were well worth it.

And ordering from the web is always significantly cheaper than going with a local company because the local printing companies have much higher overhead and lower volume than the on-line companies.

It may be true many times, though not always. I checked prices at businesscards.com and could get twice as many at a lower price from local printers. I've seen some that do things like not charging extra for color on certain days because they set up one press in a particular color for that day (i.e. blue on Tuesdays, red on Thursdays, etc.)

I can see certain advantages to using one of these Internet based printers, particularly cost and submissions. Two years ago, I was getting some printing done and learned how few printers accepted media on disk. Even most of the Office Depots and Office Maxs didn't and they sell computers. A local printer I've used (who is actually one of my first computer customers from years ago) was still using an antiquated typesetting machine as it would cost $10,000 to get the Macintosh and other equipment he wanted.

One drawback to the Internet printers is that you can't see what the stock and samples look like. The texture of the stock, its sheen, or lack of it, and raised lettering and graphics cannot be seen in a browser.

Many people consider it unethical to go into a local shop to see merhandise, take up their time, and then order it via the Internet. I tend to agree if the intention was to buy by 'net all along.

As with many things, Internet purchases may be best for those who know what they want and don't require much assistance in the selection.

I bought my business checks at checksforless.com and saved considerably over what the bank and printers wanted. In fact, they lived up to their name as no other Internet check printer was as cheap as they were.

Originally posted by KDAWebServices

Another thing to make sure of is that you have used Pantone colours, if you stick to the Pantone pallete then you can't go wrong and you can be sure that it will come out like it is supposed to be.


That's why I always have my trusty "Pantone - solid to process" booklet thing handy. Of course I always keep it in a cool dark drawer and treat it nicely. Those things are very expensive considering they're not much more than paint swatches for print. :)

Greg Moore