What is the most cost effective way to print good quality business cards at home?
I design websites for people, and would like to offer Business Card printing as a little additional service. I’m looking for a cost effective way to print high quality Business Cards. I don’t mind paying out for a bit of printing kit if it’s pretty reasonably priced. I’ll obviously also need some software. I’m assuming I could just design the cards in Photoshop.
Any advice would be helpful. Thanks.
It’s more the hardware I need advice on.
If you already own Photoshop and don’t want to spend money on additional software, then yes, you can set up your business cards in Photoshop.
InDesign however, would make your life a lot easier – it’s included in several of the CS bundles – so if you use other Adobe software you may even already own it.
You will be able to combine text and graphics much more easily, add trim marks etc. in exact x/y co-ordinates and also be able to accurately step and repeat your cards so you can print a full sheet of them without wastage.
Additional Info
OK, all you really need in that case is a decent quality colour laserprinter. Personal favourites are Xerox and Epson. Probably the most important feature to you will be its ability to handle various heavy-weight stocks as your focus will be on cards.
If you already own Photoshop and don’t want to spend money on additional software, then yes, you can set up your business cards in Photoshop.
InDesign however, would make your life a lot easier – it’s included in several of the CS bundles – so if you use other Adobe software you may even already own it.
You will be able to combine text and graphics much more easily, add trim marks etc. in exact x/y co-ordinates and also be able to accurately step and repeat your cards so you can print a full sheet of them without wastage.
Additional Info
OK, all you really need in that case is a decent quality colour laserprinter. Personal favourites are Xerox and Epson. Probably the most important feature to you will be its ability to handle various heavy-weight stocks as your focus will be on cards.
References :
Corel Draw 11 and Photoshop are what I use – but printing them at home is likely not going to work out for you, or it will look very amateurish, or, it will not be cost effective. A printing shop’s printers generally cost about 30k.
If you’re looking for cheap but good printing, I’d check out vistaprint ( http://bit.ly/9qUb8i ) they have great pricing/deals and pretty low setup costs. You can upload eps, ai or just a high rez jpg, so I use them for pretty much everything (I run a martial arts school and have business cards ‘n flyers etc)
You can also use local print shops like The UPS store (I used to work there, which is why I know about this stuff) or Kinkos, but, I tend to lean more towards online shops these days, as the delivery time is fast, the pricing excellent and the quality the same.
References :
The UPS store (google it)
http://bit.ly/9qUb8i