Custom die cutting or laser cutting resources?
Ok, so, brilliant Typophiles, you’ve convinced me to invest in personal business cards. I believe my design is strong enough to warrant somehow finding the money for the custom die cut. Plus, I figure if I have a card I truly love, it alone can boost my confidence enough to get it out there more often.
So now I’m looking for the right vendor to produce the card. I’ve never sourced a custom die cut with low price as a priority before. Any advice? Google hasn’t been very helpful thus far.
AK
PS In the spirit of sharing, here’s my favorite printer - they have this AMAZING new machine that can print on any substrate with extraordinary beyond-photographic quality (plastic, glass, cork, a door ...!) It uses UV curable inks, which makes it the most environmental printer in the country. Link: http://www.lightworksvt.com/green
9.Sep.2007 7.22pm
It’s good to have another green printer. All the ones I know about are in the SF bay area.
9.Sep.2007 7.27pm
Look up steel rule die makers in the yellow pages. If you send them and outline the will make a cutting die. Any letterpress printer can do the die cutting.
I hope that is what you need.
9.Sep.2007 8.03pm
Thanks Robert, but I knew that. What I was hoping to find was a quality company online that I could afford (while I’m unemployed.)
AK
9.Sep.2007 9.38pm
You should try drawing up the die ahead of time and see if you can find a printer who already has one that’s similar, if it’s just a round or slightly odd shape there are already plenty floating around.
It’s good to have another green printer. All the ones I know about are in the SF bay area.
There’s a great green printer just outside of Washington DC—and they take it seriously, not just marketing gimmicks and lip service. Of course, with the newer restrictions on printing inks and the trend toward selling bales of waste paper for recycling, the whole industry will be green soon.
9.Sep.2007 10.03pm
What’s the name of the green printer outside of Washington DC? Light-Works is great, but they do primarily large format printing, so I’m always looking for green sources for smaller media.
Light-Works takes it really seriously, too, they sourced their new UV Ink printer from Austria, and I think they’re the first in the US to have both environmentally sound substrates AND printing processes.
I had NO IDEA how toxic ink was until I read their website - and I didn’t know chlorine bleached paper produced dioxin (which is apparently second only to radioactive waste in toxicity - ick!)
AK
11.Sep.2007 10.58pm
I can’t seem to find a suitable printer online, but I’ll be in Boston for two weeks starting Monday. Does anyone have a printer or letterpress recommendation in Beantown? I need an affordable shop to produce about 1000 business cards with a custom die or laser cut.
Any advice? Thanks.