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A Recipe for Homemade Biz Cards that Don't Look Homemade
You've probably seen catalogs and ads for making your own business cards on specially designed paper -- special card stock with perforated edges and professional-looking designs, with matching letterhead and envelopes.
If you've invested in a high-quality printer, like a Hewlett-Packard LaserJet or DeskJet, you've got the right equipment to dive into do-it-yourself biz cards. But you may wonder how they really turn out.
Idea Cafe has given this approach a try, and we think we've found a recipe for success.
Why Do It Yourself?
If you know you use 20 or more business cards each month, it's more practical for you to go with the professionally printed cards. But, if you need just a few cards to hand out to your small group of clients, or to the few contacts you make during the year, the do-it-yourself approach may be for you. Here's why:
- You can customize your cards to fit your clients or contacts. Say you're on your way to a trade show and you know you'll need 50 cards to hand out. Design a card targeted to the niche market you'll meet at that show. But when you meet with a referral in a slightly different market, you can take along just one or two cards that extol different aspects of your business suited to that referral.
- You can easily add, subtract, or change contact information, such as your email address, cell phone or fax number, if necessary, without getting another 1,000 cards printed.
- You can save money. You probably won't save a lot if you want something simple, without a logo or color. A thousand business cards, using your local print shop's pre-fabbed design, plain card stock, and black ink, can cost as little as $18 - $20. But if you want to customize your cards, or start adding color or custom designs, then the do-it-yourself approach can be cheaper.
Recipe for Success
If you take the do-it-yourself approach, here are some tips to achieve the best results:
- Use card stock that holds the ink well. Some printer manufacturers, including Hewlett-Packard, sell papers and card stock they recommend especially for their printers and toners. When you shop for your card stock, buy one or two sheets of different paper types, run them through your printer, and rub your fingers over the letters to check for smearing or deterioration, before you buy 50 or 100 sheets.
- Go for card stock that gives you a crisp, card-like edge. We tested several and liked Avery's perforated cards and DIGIPAPERSß new "no-perf" card stock. You'll need to run the no-perf sheets of cards through the manual feed on your printer to avoid paper jams, but the results are quite impressive. We at Idea Cafe suffered no paper jams, and were very pleased with the card-like edge.
- If you can't find the paper you want among those made especially for do-it-yourself cards, or want a slightly heavier, sturdier card, try shopping around for regular card stock -- not predesigned for business cards. Print your cards with crop marks offset from the edge of the card (see below), and then use a ruler and Exacto-knife (TM), or a paper cutter with a sharp blade to cut out the cards. Or, for the most professional look, take your printed sheets down to your local print shop and have them cut on a professional-grade cutter. This is pretty cheap, around $7 - $10 for 100 sheets or fewer.
For the do-it-yourselfers out there, here's a few more tips to get you started. Standard business cards are 2" x 3 1/2". Use the grid shown here to get 10 cards on an 8 1/2" x 11" sheet. Top margins are 1/2" and left and right margins are 3/4". Use crop marks offset from the edge of the card as shown below for the best results.
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