Where should I purchase business cards for a small company?

September 25, 2009 5:58 PM

Where should I purchase business cards for a small company?

Hi. I have a small company and need to have some business cards printed. We have the design; we just need someone to print it. We need cards for three people, with a minimum of 500/250/250. The design is 4/0, full color with a blank back.

We are based in Brooklyn and I like to work locally for printing, but that's not a requirement. We would like to work with a company that can help us with other printing needs in the future (brochures, letterhead, stickers, etc).

What we definitely want is a printer that is inexpensive (like, less than .25/card) and offers good quality paper stock. We want a heavy, strong card stock with a good feel to it. Matte. A place that offers spot gloss printing would be good, too.

I'd love to get letterpressed cards (two color), but I think it's a little too pricy for us, unfortunately.

So, do you know a printer that would be a good fit? Have you had a good/bad experience with a printing company? Any advice and recommendations are very much appreciated.

posted by davidriley to Media & Arts (7 answers total)

I asked a friend of mine in Brooklyn who is a graphic artist. He recommended New Moon Print.
posted by nightwood at 6:47 PM on September 25, 2009

I've used Overnight Prints for many business cards, and they've always turned out great. They use a really nice, heavy stock, and you can choose matte or gloss finish on one or both sides. For 250 cards, they're currently $24.95 for single-sided or $29.95 for double-sided, and the rate per card decreases for higher quantities. They also print letterhead, brochures, etc., though I don't have any personal experience with these products.
posted by LolaGeek at 7:28 PM on September 25, 2009 [1 favorite]

I have been very happy with what I have ordered from moo.com
posted by ainsley at 7:52 PM on September 25, 2009

VistaPrint has done nicely for me. They do the full-service stuff you're looking for.
posted by bryon at 8:34 PM on September 25, 2009

Spot gloss is tricky to find with low cost internet printers. Here's an earlier post of mine from eighteen months ago that gives a rundown of the printers I've had direct experience with. I wouldn't recommend Overnight Prints anymore, though. I had like three or four messed up jobs in a row and just decided they aren't worth it.

My default choice these days is Low Price Print. (Weird, but I checked business-card.com and their web site looks exactly like Low Price Print's now.)
posted by MegoSteve at 10:09 PM on September 25, 2009 [1 favorite]

moo.com looks awesome, but at the end of the day, my order was refunded because they couldn't match the colors. For a company that seems to target photographers so much, a simple Illustrator designed business card was just something they couldn't print. They admitted that they don't attempt to do any profiling once I told them I designed my card on a calibrated screen and made a few local prints to see how I liked it and that their product was nothing like what I saw on my end in print or on screen.
posted by Brian Puccio at 3:27 AM on September 26, 2009

seconding OvernightPrints.com. Here are some coupons for the site
posted by meta_eli at 9:24 AM on September 26, 2009