Business Cards Supplier ? - The Book-keepers Forum (UK)

Adrian99 · Senior Member

Business Cards Supplier ?

ClawzCTR · Guru

Although cheap, DO NOT use vista print!

Find a local printer that will do them in small batches to start with, 250, 500. you wont need 1000's so dont go silly.

Moo.com are a good site for proper, professional cards, they do 50 at a time, but they can be expensive if you start going for premuim card, matt finishes, then the cost can add up and you'll end up paying 50-60 for 50 cards when you could have got 250 locally for the same price.

HTH, G.

MarkS · Expert

Agree

Dont use vista print

Find a local printer and get say 250 or 500 cards done and get them done on good quality paper eg 400gms silk finish.

At the end of the day the card will reflect on you. So you dont want it to look unprofessional.

Mark

scardsone · Newbie

or you can use www.scards.com as one of the best options at the moment with high quality at very low prices

very fast print out and delivery

ClawzCTR · Guru

All I can say is be carefull of online card printers, it doesn't matter if they say premium or not, if they are not standard business card sizes and thickness the people you hand them out too will know right away!

I'm Sure Mark will agree with me, and so will others on this site, if you go to a networking event and start handing out your thin/odd sized cards then you will probably feel like you should have spent the extra 20-30 quid and gone with professional printed ones.

and in some cases you may, like me, suffer from card envy! As you will be handed some absolutley beautiful cards some should be framed! There's one guy in my BNI group who is a gold and bullion dealer... he's had his standard ones made up on matt black card about 1000gsm thick (thats about 4 normal business cards thick) printed with silver wording, and then there's his PREMIUM cards that are pressed from a sheet of brushed aluminium with black print. they looks the dogs danglys but cost him £5 PER CARD!!!! :O

scardsone · Newbie

Gary,

we have the product called extravagant business cards thats a three-layer card with weight of 800gsm and the middle layer can be colored

you should give it a try

costs 24.95 for 120 cards

check it at scards.com

ClawzCTR · Guru

Yeah, thanks for the offer Scards, but i have just placed an order with my local print for a 1000 cards matt laminate with a spot UV on them at 300gsm. they look great and will take some time to go through!

(ps, on a side note, try not to advertise yourself too much and sell stuff... the mods of the forum dont like it! :/) **shhhh i hear them coming**** lol

Adrian99 · Senior Member

Wow, I ve just google the UV spot, this is a nice cool thing !!!

It makes people look twice at the card.

Any price tip ?

Cheers,

Adrian

ClawzCTR · Guru

Well my redesign (just changing the words 'managing director' which my design kindly put on there even though i dont have a limited company!, dont get me started, touchy subject! lol) and 500, sorry not 1000, just checked, cost me 100 + VAT.

But I went from standard cards, to matt laminate, which gives the card a 'soft' feel (and makes it stiffer) with the spot UV. the UV is what put the cost up, cost 30 quid if i remember rightly, so standard print with laminate will cost around 60-70 quid for 500.

Where do you live Adrian?

Adrian99 · Senior Member

I live in East London

Many thanks Garry, Mark and Scardsone,

I will have to rush to work now, but I would love to keep in touch about the best way to have professional business card

Have a great day !

Adrian

Adrian99 · Senior Member

Yesterday I`ve asked for a free pack and now it just gone through my letter box from m o o .com

The cards looks great, kind of pricey though ...
But I guess quality comes with a price. I think it would be nice to have quality and low price ....

Adrian

ClawzCTR · Guru

Do you have a design in mind for them??

I mean I can give my lass a call to get you a quote if you want??

Amanda · Expert

Well I did use Vista print and they are fine. I didn't use the cheap free stuff, I use the upgraded card and went for a glossy finish, and a client of mine who is heavily into marketing thought I had paid a lot of money for them and had them done professionally at a printer. I did take my time in designing them and I enjoy art and design so didn't have a problem doing them myself. They cost me about £24 can't remember how many for, but they really do look good. I compared them to a colleague of mine who had them done by a designer and then printed by a company and even he said mine looked better and were a lot cheaper.

So if you are going to go for a company to do them ask for a sample first and really check them out, there are a few dodgy printers about nowadays with all of these franchise printers popping up all over the place.

HTH

Missey · Veteran Member

Hi Adrian

Did you design the card yourself of did you ask the printers to do this for you. I'm not very artistic and was hoping for some tips in design the card in the first place. Any ideas?

Also, what is UV spot?

Bubs

kjmcculloch83 · Expert

I agree with those who have said use a local printer. For new small businesses a printer will normally be one of their first stops. Whether it's flyers or business cards they'll need something. They'll also need bookkeeping. While your local printer may pass your details, vistaprint or moo never will. A local person will also do the design for you and let you feel the cards before you commit.

Kris

ClawzCTR · Guru

Second what Kris said!
You never know they may run offers for new startups where they design the card for free if you buy 500 cards that sort of thing! Plus helping local businesses is a passion of mine, you buy local then they are more likely to buy local! :D

Missey a UV spot is the 'shiny' bit on a matt card. I almost sure that you will have come across a UV spot card somewhere on your travels.

rachel_mclean · Guru

why does nobody like vista print? just out of interest

Shamus · Forum Moderator & Expert

Hi Rachel,

pretty much down to the size of the cards so when you are handing them out even without the vistaprint logo (which can be removed) people know where you got the cards so feels like going into a Hugo Boss shop wearing a suit from Tesco.

Its a real shame as I like the fact that you can design your own cards.

Dowbnside is that when designing them you assume its for a proper size card but when they get them the writing is scaled down to the 3/4 size card so often the smaller writing is unreadable.

Missey · Veteran Member

Thanks Gary

Amanda · Expert

Shaun,

With Vista Print you can change the size of the font quite easily to accommodate for the fact they are slightly smaller. I had no problem with mine, I did fiddle with the design for a while, but I like doing things like that anyway. All in all I was really pleased with them.

Shamus · Forum Moderator & Expert

Hi Amanda,

yes, I use Vistaprint a lot and think that they are great for postcards (except that they have dropped the quantity from 100 in a batch to 10!) but for the business cards I tend to agree with the other posters in relation to the size of the card.

When designing them you do not really get a feel for the finished product as although proportionally correct what was readable on the screen in unreadable in reality so you end up ordering another batch moving up a couple of font sizes.

Have you noticed that the free card holder that you get is for real size business cards and the Vistaprint ones don't fit in it properly.

As with yourself I love doing the design myself (suppose that links in with my website lego set that I play with).

Also I've had issue's with actual printers in the past whose designer could not spell.

It was a franchise chain. Costs £65 including the design and when you pick them up you approve them. Only later were the spelling mistakes pointed out to me (like I'm going to spot them!). Went back to the shop but their arguement was that I had approved them so tough cookies.

I did later get an apology and my money back from the UK head office of the franchise chain but the whole thing left a bit of a sour taste about trusting anyone else with the design of my advertising materials.

Plus where's the fun in letting other people do it for you.

... Knew that my A level art would come in useful one day.... Still not sussed what use A level art history was though.

All the best,

Shaun.