Saturday Solutions: quick & easy business cards

This week, due to budget and time constraints, I wasn't able to get a set of color business cards printed to promote my blog at NeoCon. So I used an alternative that worked well for me during the Toyth show: wallet sized photos. I wanted the cards I gave out at the show to only feature the pictures that I was exhibiting. At 2"x3" my wallet size photos are almost the same size as business cards, but cheaper. The Walgreen's in my area charge about $1 per sheet of 4, making them a quarter apiece.

Or save even more money by taking a few minutes to do a wallet sized layout in Photoshop and your cards will cost even less.



For the Toyth show, I wanted my Doll Project images to be free of captions, but I still wanted to have my contact information included.


So I printed all of my information on labels, which I put on the opposite side of my cards. I used Avery's 6572 permanent ID labels and they were just the right size.




For professional looking results, I recommend taking the time to use a paper cutter instead of just scissors to cut out your cards. And having them printed at a photo finishing place yields higher quality images than using a regular printer. But if you have a good photo printer, go for it!

So, for this quick and cost-effective mode of self-promotion, this is all you need:

• digital versions of your work (or whatever is going on your business card)
• photo finishing services (or a very good photo printer of your own)
  
• a paper cutter
• Avery's 6572 permanent ID labels

Hopefully your inexpensive cards will help you get in a position where you can go all out and splurge on the fancy ones someday. Happy networking!