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January 24, 2011 9:15 AM   Subscribe

Assuming low print quantities, what's the most efficient way (in terms of price-to-quality ratio) to print a design on notecards?

From time to time I come up with designs that I'd like to try selling in notecard form. The notecards would be blank on the inside, with a design on the front (sometimes in color, sometimes in black and white) and my logo/website/copyright on the back. I'm imagining selling them in packs of 5-10, with plain white envelopes, at a price of $1-2 per card -- so I'd want them to be nice, but not heavy-linen-paper-and-lined-envelopes nice.

Designing the cards and laying them out as high-quality digital files is the part I don't have a problem with. Turning the design into an actual notecard, of a high enough quality to sell, is the part I'm not sure about.

Should I print them myself? I see things on Etsy being advertised as "giclée prints," which seems to be just a fancy way of saying "printed on an inkjet printer." Is it? Could I buy an inexpensive photo printer and print cards myself? If so, what type of paper should I print on -- premade notecards meant for printing at home? Cardstock that I cut and score into notecards myself? Glossy photo paper? (A paper with some kind of coating would be nicer than a plain cardstock, I imagine, but I don't know what kind of cost differential exists there.) I've experimented with my B&W laser printer and cheap printable cardstock notecards from the crafts store, but results were less than stellar.

Or should I outsource the printing? Are there online printers that do short runs of quality notecards at low prices? Would a local print shop be able to do this affordably? Should I just have Office Depot print the designs on cardstock (presumably with a laser printer) and then, on my own, slice and score each page into two A2-sized cards?

In terms of quantity, I'd want to start small with as low an expenditure as possible -- even if it means very low profit margins -- and generate larger quantities if it turns out they sell. Assume that I am decent with computers and in, say, the 85th percentile in terms of crafting skill.
posted by enlarged to show texture to Media & Arts (7 answers total) 5 users marked this as a favorite
 
Never used it but

create.cardnotes.com

seems like it may be what you're looking for.
posted by freakazoid at 9:34 AM on January 24, 2011


Best answer: Laser is the way to go. Inkjet is great for large-scale prints that will be in a controlled environment (art prints, etc) but far less than ideal for things like post cards, note cards, business cards, etc. The inks are not water-fast, making them lousy for mailing. (How many times have you pulled a damp envelope from your mailbox?) A good laser printer on good media will give you near-offset quality, but without the setup costs and usual minimum quantities.

At our print shop, we produce greeting cards, blank note cards, and post cards for a number of local artists and photographers. We print using high-quality color laser copiers, and we score and cut the cards to whatever specs you want. This part of our business is rapidly growing, so we know the quality is there. Your friendly local print shop should be able to handle this for you nicely.

If you want to do them on your own, getting a good color laser printer and a decent paper trimmer is going to be your absolute minimum investment. You'll be scoring and folding your cards by hand, until your volume is such that you feel the purchase of a scoring machine (anywhere from $1,000 ~ $15,000 depending on capabilities you want) is worthwhile.

As far as color laser printers go, here's what I would recommend:

Kyocera: Very good at handling a variety of media types, incredibly low operating cost, good image quality and color consistency.
OKI: Handles perhaps the widest array of media types, toner formulation leaves a somewhat glossy look (which may or may not be what you're after), but has rather high operating cost despite their "two-part consumables" being touted as a plus.
Xerox Phaser (solid ink): Makes fan-freaking-tastic looking prints, very glossy look. Does card stock ok. Downside is due to solid ink, most pens and pencils will not write on top of printed areas. Very, very high real-world operating cost, despite advertising claims. (Can use up an entire load of inks runing a clean/purge cycle!)

You'll definitely want to score your cards before folding them; depending on how you lay out your cards on the page, you may be folding with or against the grain. Some papers will crease unevenly or even crack outright when folded with the grain, if not scored first. Even if you do it by hand, you really must score your cards if you want a marketable product.

tl;dr: start by talking to your local quick-print shop and see what their capabilities are. Especially if you're starting out small, even though the cost-per-print is going to be higher at the print shop vs. doing it yourself, you're going to have to print a lot of cards yourself to overcome the initial outlays in equipment (printer, cutter, scoring equipment, toner, paper, etc etc) before you start realizing a savings by doing it yourself.
posted by xedrik at 9:40 AM on January 24, 2011 [3 favorites]


Response by poster: Thanks, xedrik! That's tremendously helpful. As you can probably guess from the fact that I linked to a $35 inkjet printer, buying a color laser printer is a bit outside my financial bounds right now, so I will definitely go to a local print shop and see what kinds of options they provide. If anyone else has other suggestions or personal experiences, I'd love to hear them!
posted by enlarged to show texture at 9:49 AM on January 24, 2011


My local print shop also offered to match any price I could find online, so you can try that, too, when you investigate what's available locally.
posted by galadriel at 10:13 AM on January 24, 2011


I've had good luck with Moo cards and Vistaprint has a good rate, from what I've heard.
posted by beebers at 10:28 AM on January 24, 2011


Yeah, but Vistaprint puts a slug with their contact info on the cards, don't they?
posted by wenestvedt at 9:53 AM on January 25, 2011


Last time I was on the VistaPrint website--which admittedly was some time ago--you could get cheaper stuff with their contact info, and slightly more expensive stuff without. Honestly, though, adding together their prices and their inflated shipping rates, they were not priced competitively.
posted by galadriel at 10:48 AM on January 26, 2011


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