Ah, 4 years of art school on a tight budget paid off. My very own make-it-at-home-because-I-am-too-cheap-to-get-them-printed-by-a-printer Business Card.

I’ve just finish designing the Business Card for yiuphotography.com and I needed to get them printed. First of all, here’s the design. It will be a front and back business card. Like it, hate it?

I decided to make them myself because I didn’t want to spend a lot of money. This involved getting the right paper stock and an inkjet printer that can handle the paper. I started by going to one of my frequently visited paper shop during my art school years called Print Icon. Which is located at W18 Street between 5th and 6th Avenue in Manhattan. They carry a wide selection of paper and material for invitations and greeding cards. You can really spend all day in there coming up with all kinds of paper projects in your head. They also do printing in-house so if you are not the do-it-yourself-type, you can have them do it for you. I was able to find a nice watercolor canvas paper that’s 120lb thick. Heavy enough for the feel of a business card. Textured enough to give it that nice crafty feeling in your hand.

As for the printer, which I didn’t have one. Actually, I do have an old printer that is out of ink. However, with the price of ink cartridge nowadays, you are better off buying a new printer. Which is exactly what I did. I wasn’t particularly picky at the kind of printer I wanted to purchase. All I am looking for in a printer is a paper tray feed from the back of the printer instead of the front. Why you might ask? Because heavy paper is much stiffer than regular paper. Not easy to bend around the loop of a printer that feeds the paper from the front and spits it back out to the front. Therefore, a printer that feeds its paper from the back side would allow it come through the front easily will be the most ideal.

Anyway, I’ve just wander into the local Best Buy and they just so happened to have a clearance sale on the Canon MP210 All-in-One print. And they carried only one kind of printer that has a rear paper tray. So clearly, this was the right choice.

After I arrived home, like a kid who just sucker his parents into buying him a new toy from Toys ‘R’ Us, I quickly destroyed the packaging and tested out the printer’s quality.

Here’s the result of my handy work.

This is what it looks like straight out of the inkjet:

Here’s what it looks like after 5 minutes of slicing on a rotary blade cutter:

Yup… Now I have a good handful of business cards to give out. I feel much more professional already.

Production elements:
Paper: 120lb watercolor canvas white paper. Purchased from Print Icon 4.00 for a pack of 50 sheets. Enough for 650 cards @ 13 cards/sheet
Printer: Canon MP210 All in One InkJet Printer. 69.99 plus Tax.

Design elements:
Chinese Type face “姚”: Hei Regular
English Type face: Adobe Caslon Regular, Semibold and Bold
Brush art element: Adobe Illustrator Brush Library Watercolor Stroke 6. Set Stroke as 1.5 points.