Cheap V.Basic Cards

[Biomech]

Good morning!

I have managed to get myself a gig as an event photographer. I will be taking pictures of people ice skating around Christmas and then offering them up for sale via a website.

What I need is some kind of very basic business cards (my proper ones cost a fortune) that I can have printed with the webstore address, my details as photographer and the event organisers details.

There will be around 7,000+ people going through this so I need something that's cheap yet usable (ie no A4 printer leaflets). I livein the UK - any ideas of someone who offers something like this? I use Goodprint for my cards but they are £40 per 100. Vistaprint would be an alternative but all of their basic templates are pretty horrendous and just involve adding a postal address.

All ideas welcome

[NicoleScraps]

You don't have to add what it says to add on Vista print, did you know that? If you just made the box that says postal address blank, then that space on the card will be blank. Or you can put something totally different in that spot, like a little information about your business or whatever.

[Biomech]

Sorry, I probably could have worded that better Want I meant was that the general layout of the basic templates is really shoddy :P

[Jim Poor]

Do they not allow you to design your own?

Gotprint.com accepts your design. I got 5000 cards for about $40 on one of their specials. Full color, two sided, thick stock. NICE cards.

[candidrachel]

What about visiting a local independant printers. They are normally cheaper, produce something unique, give excellent customer service and are normally of a better quality than Vistaprint.

I got some vistaprint ones and threw them straight in the bin! They were just flimsy, and crappy looking.

Don't forget to write a killer headline on the back of the card. That's a tip I received from someone lately. Most folks leave it blank so make sure you leave a killer headline that makes YOU stand out from the crowd.

[danbaileyphoto]

I'm all for using local printers whenever possible, but I recently did a batch of business cards through iprint.com. They were very good quality and inexpensive, I think I paid 17 dollars for 250 cards.

[jdepould]

Have you tried an office supply store? I don't know about the UK, but here in the US Staples and OfficeMax do basic cards for pretty cheap.

[lonni]

Use a local printer, the more you order the better the price gets, they should also be able to design you something nice.

Get quotes and go back to teh ones you like and tell them that some oen else will do it cheaper, see if they drop their price. I know in australia the print industry is very competitive as more and more people go online and offshore, so they are willing to give good prices.

HTH

[Biomech]

Thank you all for your replies! They have been a great help.
I've actually decided to go with Goodprint- for the simple fact that after I decided they were too expensive for the ideal design, I received a 50% off email