Business cards, Logo, Letterheads

MoneyMachine_2

Hi, I'm lookong for the cheapest provider of the above.
I'm basically after a good logo designer who can then print me some Business Cards and Letterheads etc. Trying to find cheapest on the net without compromising on quality.
Nothing in massive quantities - just somewhere to start - once I'm happy with examples then I'll source the cheapest printer.
Not really interested in the 'design it yourself onlone' approach as I really need a good logo designed.
Good/bad stories, experiences and recommendations sought!!!

Thanks.

Savvy_Sue

My recommendation would be to make friends with a local printer who offers good basic prices, rather than necessarily going for cheapest and doing it online. Cheapest is not always best.

They will usually have designers they are used to working with and examples of their work all over the place, so you can get ideas and discuss pros and cons of different printing techniques, and find out why this one is four times the price of that one - generally because it looks a whole lot better.

I can give you recommendations for such firms in both Guildford and Bristol, if that helps!

d.ylan

MoneyMachine wrote:

Hi, I'm lookong for the cheapest provider of the above.
I'm basically after a good logo designer who can then print me some Business Cards and Letterheads etc. Trying to find cheapest on the net without compromising on quality.
Nothing in massive quantities - just somewhere to start - once I'm happy with examples then I'll source the cheapest printer.
Not really interested in the 'design it yourself onlone' approach as I really need a good logo designed.
Good/bad stories, experiences and recommendations sought!!!

Thanks.

"Trying to find cheapest on the net without compromising on quality."
The usual impossible holy grail People who make a living out of quality design work cant afford to be as cheap as you'd like, which sucks

Savvy_Sue had some good advice, but failing that, if you're really desperate to get it done 'one the cheap' what I would suggest which might be a little less orthodox is contacting your local college/sixth form college art depts and offering a token amount, say £100 (or £50 depending how much you can afford I guess), for the strongest design from the students (maybe two secondary amounts maybe around £20 for good-but-not-chosen ones to encourage more students to give it a shot).

What I would say is in your contact to the college mention that it would be supporting a new small local business, and would be a great real-world piece for the students design portfolio, so it's win-win.

One thing I would bear in mind is specifying(sp) that the design for the letter heads must not bleed to the edge of the page (ie any graphics or backgrounds and text well in from the edges with no image elements going off the page) -- this will allow you to comfortably get away with printing your letterheads on your home inkjet and save you some £££ untill you can afford proper letterheads, this is something I usually recommend to my start-up clients, and can still look elegant and professional.

You can also get some 'pop out' business card sheets (from places like whsmiths and pcworld, and no doubt cheaper online) for desktop printers if you're only going to be using low volumes (probably worth it for less than 100 cards), but I've never used these personally.

Let us know how you get on

thePhilster69

Hi, I'd suggest https://www.printing.com for stationery if you fanyc going down that road. Great prices for superb printing and quality. I got a set of double-sided business cards for around £70 for 500 (single sided were around £40 last time I checked). You can, as has been suggested, get some and print them yourself, but when you factor in the time for you to print, and the ink costs on top of the cost of the cut-out cards, but I'd definitely recommend getting them done properly...

But then, I'm a graphic designer, so I would say that!!

odorus

I use vistaprint.co.uk for business cards. They are very reliable and very cheap. The business cards are of good quality, and you can get 250 free to see what they are like. I would definately give them a try if you are on a tight budget.

Poppycat

theprintinghouse is :spam:ming forums

mercman1969

Money Machine,

I would be more than happy to assist you in this should you require. We predominantly print onto credit card sized pvc, but also undertake normal paper medium work. As an example our pvc cards start from as little as 15p each. We also do not charge a design or set up fee for our work

I would be more than willing to correspond with you on this should you wish

Regards

Pete