Can anyone recommend a printer for short run, full color business cards?

December 28, 2004 10:21 AM

Brought on by the business card thread, can anyone recommend a printer for short run, full color business cards? The ability to do interesting things, such as die-cut and odd substrates is a plus.
posted by quibx to Shopping (11 answers total)

No paper choices. No die cuts. In fact nothing "fancy" at all, but I've always found 4x6.com to be a decent option if you want to print really inexpensive cards. If die cutting and specialty materials are necessary, you'll find your best bet is going to be to find a 4-color printer in your area with a good reputation.
posted by ScottUltra at 10:46 AM on December 28, 2004

psprint.com : i just did a run of 250 at psprint and it comes to around $30 after shipping. one-sided, full-color gloss.

looks like 4x6 wants $90 for that kind of job, so you skip it if your chief concern is price.

psprint offers die-cuts and stuff, but it'll cost ya.

i haven't got the cards yet (turnaround is 10 biz days) so i can 't critique the print quality. I've seen some cards that a guy did with ps and they were badly cut, but their designer might have ignored the whole "text safety zone" recommended by psprint (which i believe was probably the case because parts of the design were pretty amateur.)
posted by fishfucker at 10:51 AM on December 28, 2004

This is a second vote for psprint. In the last two years I've used them for three runs of business cards, one run of postcards, one run of wedding invitations, and two runs of die-cut stickers. Their customer service is awesome, their prices are great, and the print quality is fine.
posted by arielmeadow at 11:11 AM on December 28, 2004

Ideal Jacobs might be able to help you out.
posted by brent at 11:58 AM on December 28, 2004

No paper choices, but I've always been happy with business-card.com.
posted by MegoSteve at 12:34 PM on December 28, 2004

Just as a word to the wise: Odd-sized, weird substrate, or oddly die-cut business cards don't go in the rolodex, which I look things up in, they go in the Business Card Drawer of Doom, never to see the light of day again. Or the roundfile, if I don't like the person.

If you create an oddly sized or weird business card for yourself or your client, create a normal sized one too for those of us who still live in the 90's and keep them in a flip file to access when we leave our PDAs at home.
posted by SpecialK at 1:08 PM on December 28, 2004

Oh, and for fast turnaround and decent cards, I like vistaprint, but their blacks aren't pure, so I'm going to get mine offset next time.
posted by SpecialK at 1:08 PM on December 28, 2004

What SpecialK said. Weird business cards need to be weird but usable.
posted by Vidiot at 1:38 PM on December 28, 2004

I'd be interested in hearing which printers Canadian folk have gone with -- shipping/customs is a bitch when getting things printed in the US and sent over the border.
posted by Jairus at 1:55 PM on December 28, 2004

I've had good luck and great pricing for business cards and postcards with Overnight Prints. Pretty basic though, no fancy dies, etc.
posted by madamjujujive at 7:50 AM on December 29, 2004

got the cards back from psprint and they look great, the colors came out fantastic (thanks to some excellent advice from our own salmonberry).

RECOMMENDED A++++ WOULD BUY AGAIN
posted by fishfucker at 5:46 PM on January 4, 2005