Question Business Cards

[Anastasi55]

With our new equipment, the idea of printing our own business cards has come up. ...which now brings up a bunch of questions: A. Is it possible to print double-sided for something that small? B. Could I just have our ordinary Canon printer added to Onyx, print to 11 x 17, and then cut them on the Graphtec? C. Can I load 11 x 17 or 12 x 18 paper into our Surecolor for this purpose?

D. Or should I tell these guys that it's still cheaper and easier to outsource to Staples for $15?

 

[bannertime]

Unless you have large guillotine cutters, it's likely not going to be worth it. There are numerous trade only business card printers with competitive pricing; if that was something you wanted to venture into.

 

[2B]

there are cheaper and better sources than staples
Plenty of threads talking about who to use for paper printing

IMO, not worth doing in-house with the outsourcing options

 

[Anastasi55]

That's what I thought. Unless they start thinking about a fancier die cut to make us stand out from the ocean of rectangles, it may not be worth the time...

 

[Anastasi55]

The latter option sounds good.
We printed some on claritex, a clear poly that comes in a roll with a matte finish on one side, on our hp 560, no lam. Very effective for in house cards, machine washable, everyone who gets one will forever recall, "you were the guy with the clear business card". But getting it to read in the graphtec was hard, had to put white on the opposite side of the printed marks, had head strikes every so often. But the graphtec would plot it just enough that they would tear right apart.

I've seen a few like that - it's a heavier clear media, right? That would look unique...

 

[timkaz227]

Maybe you could go to a small local print and have them done, even if it cost a few more dollars.

 

[#racewraps]

Check out 4over.com & Jakprints.com. We've used them both for years, always been happy. They offer all sorts of options to make your card stand tall.

From what i've seen Staples is about on par with with a Vista Print or something of that sort. The focus is more on banging out something cheap than quality.

 

[Oroscoe]

I have been in printing for 25 years. I also make signs, banners , T-shirts, and several other things. Find you someone that specializes in plastic business cards and let them do it. They can do it faster and cheaper than you can. The time you would have spent producing them can be redirected to another customer. Focus on what you do best.

 

[Abraxas Aguilera]

With our new equipment, the idea of printing our own business cards has come up. ...which now brings up a bunch of questions: A. Is it possible to print double-sided for something that small? B. Could I just have our ordinary Canon printer added to Onyx, print to 11 x 17, and then cut them on the Graphtec? C. Can I load 11 x 17 or 12 x 18 paper into our Surecolor for this purpose?

D. Or should I tell these guys that it's still cheaper and easier to outsource to Staples for $15?

Not worth the time. I really like 4over.com. They are cheap enough, that you can just double what they charge & still be competitive.

 

[Dan360]

We do a couple thousand business cards a month in house and it still makes sense to send some of the jobs out to 4Over despite having all the necessary equipment.

Sure you could do the odd specialty thing for fun, but I don't think there's much money in it.

 

[Anastasi55]

It's about experimenting with the capacity of the cutter... We might not save much money, but if I can make something unique, it might be worth it...

 

[Stacey K]

I would never print them in house, it's so cheap to farm them out. Save your cutter blade for vinyl.