Whats the best, most economical way to create business cards with your own design. thanks
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what's economical got to do with it ?
do you mean printing ?... or creating ?
Either , i simply do not know how to go about it.
mike... i like the graphic designer route.. but keep in mind..
your business card can be just a business card or it can be part of your marketing plan to brand yourself in the public's eye...
think about the .... swoop... of Nike
or the ... Gulf Oil sign ( ok .. maybe a better example )
anyways.. those are "logos"
besides the printed information.. your businesss card can reinforce your company logo...
what ?... you ain't got one ?
your logo should exist.. it should differentiate you ... it should be easy to replicate..
it should be on your hats, your shirts, your trucks, your job signs, your invoices, Proposals, your letterhead, your brochures... and your business card..
talk to a graphics designer... there are lot's of them out there.. let them give you some ideas.. and don't fall in love with the first one..
Mike Smith Rhode Island : Design / Build / Repair / Restore
I used an online co that allowed me to use a design I created myself with Photoshop. Got a photo on there, which is better than a thousand words in my case, and it's two sided and top quality at relatively little cost. Couldn't have been easier. And without discussing age, I go back to the days of using an ad agency who created mockups with overlays for each color and registration marks and charged typesetting fees, etc. This is soooooooooo much easier now than it ever used to be.
If you are competent to lay out a business card and create a digital file for printing, you would already know it.
Graphic designers use Pagemaker, Quark, software like that to lay out cards and create the computer files that printers use. Get a designer to do it. Once you have the file you can shop around for printing, or just have the designer send you somewhere.
Almost any graphic designer working solo will do a card for you. Look in the Yellow Pages or in the ads at the back of the weekly independent paper in your city. You'll probably also want the letterhead, envelopes, and maybe other stuff done as a package by the same person.
David,I agree, get a graphic designer to do it.I was lucky in that a friend's son is a graphic design student. He did it for me, I paid him good money, and he got the experience (and examples for his portfolio) as well.Cliff
I have a design. Im adinosaur without graphics software.. .
Hey Brian..Happy New Yrs.Funny anecdote here. When I came up with the Spheramid Logo, my buddy (a cartoonist for Mens Health mag and High Times..LOL) did the originl artwork. My Mom's significant Other had a Graphics Co. and employed a guy who used to work for the U.S. Mint..a real artist.Any way they found a printer and I had a few thousand cards, letterheads, and envelopes made. This was back in the 'camera ready art and burning plates days'.when I moved and needed an address change, I went to a Kinko's type place. it turns out they called me and said they could not reproduce the "grey scale" back ground with their equipment..it was "TOO MUCH LIKE MONEY"!!!Now with digital capturing, I can get close with my own computer and printer, but nothing like those first cards from '89. sorry, i attached a wrong attachment, that was my delete.
Spheramid Enterprises Architectural Woodworks
I'll just do it>
Last time we wanted design done, my wife called four or five stores that had attractive, professional ads and logos in the local paper. Most of them used the same person, and that's who we used. Logo development and design for cards, envelopes, letterhead, job sign, truck sign, and whatever else was around $500 in design fees, at I think $65 per hour. That included a fair amount of time coming up with conceptual stuff, showing it to us, and then refining. After that she put together the printing order for everything and handled getting all of it done and into our hands. Printing was maybe $250?
I'm a heinous graphic designer. It would look horrifying if I did it. Better to have my dog do it than me. There are plenty of talented people doing graphics. Anyone who's good in the game will have tons of stuff to show you. If their stuff looks good, hire them.
If you want to go on the cheap I would recomend vistaprint.com. Cards are free, you just pay shipping ($9) A good temporary solution untill you figure out exactly what you want. I think you can incorporate a logo on their site for more $.
Have you checked with your local Kinko's or similar copy store? Most of them can make business cards pretty quickly and cheaply, using your design logo. It may be worth a phone call.
If you have a PC with Microsoft Word, you can make your own. It takes a little practice, but I do cards with multiple fonts and colors and a simple graphic in one corner.
It's already set up with formats for Avery card stock which you can buy at any office supply store. What I really like is that I can print 10 at a time instead of having to buy 500 or 1000
Dave: Does Word have a special template, or something, for business cards?
Thanks!
Al Mollitor, Sharon MA
Word has templates for all of Avery's products.
From a blank word doc. try tools, envelopes or addresses and labels, go to options and it should bring up a numerical index of Avery products.
Try 5377 or 5162.
BTW, most busiuness info out there will state VERY clearly that home printed b cards are cheesy.
I tend to agree but do it anyway. Move alot see?
EricI Love A Hand That Meets My Own,
With A Hold That Causes Some Sensation.
gentleman,
Take the pro design advice if you want business. Its just like our work.
There is a lot that goes into design that cant be learned even with a bachelors degree. Good 2d design is a ton of very complicated ideas to grasp. It isnt just centering a bunch of words on a rectangle. If you want your card to sell business when you arent there, and you dont want people to throw it away cause they cant explain what they hate about it, go to a pro. Not a suzy homemaker that is dabbling, go to someone with a Masters in Graphics, or a formidable 4 year design degree with years of experience. Their suffix should read MFA or BFA (masters in fine arts)
They will take tons of things into account even the weight and of the card stock, and the 16 million colors(real number) they can choose from where you wont have that option at home.
-zen
Mike,
I had a graphic designer come up with a business card for me.... she charged me about $100 and saved it to CD. I just bring the CD to Kinko's whenever I need more cards and they burn off 250 or 500 of them for me.... and it's cheap.
Be careful though.... for me, the business card logo turned into T-shirts which turned into sweatshirts which turned into yard signs, which turned into........
Mike Smith is dead-on about branding your company with a logo of it's own. Good business for remodelers and such..... I'm a framer.... no one really even seems to care what the name of my company even is, never mind my logo! I guess my work's gonna have to do the talking. FWIW.... Mike Smith ain't kidding either...... I've seen his trash barrels.... even they have huge logo decals on 'em. And that's no joke!
Hey Smith... go shoot a digipic of the trash cans with the logo... please, I gotta see it.
you got it...
soon as i can get this stoopit computer to take attachments againMike Smith Rhode Island : Design / Build / Repair / Restore
What happened to your machine? I got mine up again pretty quick with just a little bit of fuss... it's like new. My wife is not happy that I forgot to save her collection of web bookmarks. Maybe I've got 'em on a backup somewhere.
the one at home fried it's hd..
the one at work will not load attachments in BTMike Smith Rhode Island : Design / Build / Repair / Restore
Mike,Send your pics to me and I will post them.
Jon Blakemore
Mike put's his brand on "everything" .....
Jeff Buck Construction
Artistry in Carpentry
Pgh, PA
hey, where did you steal that cute kid from ?
do you know how many munchkins have my brand ?... legions !
happy new year to all the Bucks !Mike Smith Rhode Island : Design / Build / Repair / Restore
you know, brian ... that trash barrel was a mistake..
my sign guy was supposed to do white background.. but he musta been smokin somethin.. i got a blue one.. he started to throw them away.. but i grabbed it and put it on the trash barrel..
first thing monday i'm going to call him up and order another dozen.. those trash barrels get legs.. ( at $40 a pop ) the nice big Rubbermaid Brutes..
and you're right ... they do look classy
thanks for bringing it up
happy new year.. when we gonna do lunch ?... jlc ?Mike Smith Rhode Island : Design / Build / Repair / Restore
And a Happy New Year to Helen and yourself. JLC is a sure thing this year for lunch. Somehow, and I'm not complaining, I'm still slammed with work. Just started four condos in Waltham and have two 4000 sqft houses in Wellesley lined up right after. By then I oughta be ready to rip the roof off the house Allison and I just bought... waiting until Spring for that one cuz I like being married and kinda wanna stay that way. ;)
Just curious, but where do you normally use those big logo stickers? Are those what are actually on your trucks and trailer, or is that done right on the vehicles? They do look sharp... I'd be stickin' 'em on the porta-a-john, the lull, the trailer, the dog, the wife's azz.......
I have been making business cards for some time for myself. I like controlling the process because I tinker. In addition, I like to save money!
First a tip: after you pull the cards off your printer, spray the cards LIGHTLY with Krylon Matte Acrylic. This fuses the ink or carbon (if using an laser printer) to the card stock. Office Depot, Office Max or Staples have a variety of different cards besides Avery which work well.
Next, design, a clean, easy to read card is very effective. Microsoft and Avery have templates which can be modified to meet your personal vision.
http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/templates/CT061994801033.aspx Microsoft Business Cards
http://www.avery.com/us/software/index.jsp
http://www.avery.com/us/Main?action=software.BlankTPLProductSKU&catalogcode=WEB01&softwarecode=5275 Avery Blank Business Cards
B Ely
hey mike, happy new year!
i went to a site called business-cards.com (if you google business cards it will come up on the first page). you can design your own cards from their templates. they have a macro on their site that allows you to choose from a bunch of templates and then play around with what info you want on the card, fonts, colors, justs, etc.
there are stock backgrounds you can use or upload your own logo or picture.
it was about $70 or $80 shipped for 1000 cards with a glossy front and plain back.
the cards look professionally done even though i am hardly a graphic designer.
good luck.
DCS Inc.
"He who xxxxs nuns will later join the church." -The Clash
I concur with B Ely and others urging you to make your own biz cards, and use Avery products, MsWord, etc.
Rationale:
- from a HO perspective, is more important that a contractor HAVE a business card than that it be professionally printed/cut, etc.
- from my biz experience (yes, even in my field of work which is, granted, very different from y'alls) self-printed cards are very acceptable as many in my arena and ancillary outfits, have our orgs; names changed and companies merged etc (which causes changes in logos, email addy's, etc etc ad nauseum)
WILL however agree with Mike Smith in that you should have a distinctive logo for yourself/biz and put it on all items affiliated with your work as in cards, invoices, vehicle magnetic signs and whatnot.
Iprint.com - you can design them yourself, hey, even my non-techie wife figured out the intuitive design process.
Let's not confuse the issue with facts!