Printing save the dates!

maverickpixel

Hey everyone so I'm getting married and apparently I should let people know about the date and time of said marriage. I am also an artist so I will be doing the invites my self. Normally I would print them at my school but it is aprox 430 miles away now so I'm stuck doing it online or local to nj/NYC

So all you pa'ers out there where is the best for the money printers going to be? I'm on a slightly tight budget but I also don't want it looking like poo


Thanks!

MagicToaster

I really hate the big brand name printers such as Office Max, Office Shop, etc. The machines will print poorly (When compared to high quality no-name print shops), and more often than not I always got streaks from the internal rolling mechanism transferred on to the paper.

I'd suggest finding a local print shop, they usually take better care of their machines and calibrate them more often. Also, my experience has been that they will cut, trim and fold for free, unlike big name printers. Local printers also carry more paper variety.

So, to answer your question: which one is best for your money? I can't say because local printers usually set their prices according to the job specifications but you can try to lower the price at the local print shop too.

EggyToast

My wife and I bought a color laser printer along with some semi-fancy papers (not from an office store but from an online paper store) and printed our own. It was annoying to get the printing sizes aligned and make sure everything looked good, but we saved a lot of money and, after we got past our initial headaches, the rest of the printing was pretty fast & smooth. We then used the same printer & similar paper for our invitations and programs, so the system worked well for us.

VisionOfClarity

Can you upload your work to Vistaprint? I used them for my sister's baby shower and really liked them. I'm using them for her bridal shower now.

Szechuanosaurus

What sort of design are we talking about? Just text on some nice textured paper or a full colour design?

maverickpixel

probably full color,

Szechuanosaurus

I would probaby suggest getting a local commercial print company then rather than doing it on a desktop printer. For wedding stationery quantities you are probably going to have to stick with a digital printers though and there are certain limitations with them such as banding on large flat areas of colour and limitations on the maximum thickness of paper they can print onto (problematic for making wedding stationery as you normally want fairly thick card).

If you want to be super organised you might consider designing the entire stationery set and getting it all printed in one go. That way it might work out a bit more economical to get it printed at a litho press which will give you access to thicker paper stock and a more solid repro of the design.

It depends a great deal on the actual design though, if you could describe it in more detail, including the sort o paper you want to print onto, I could give more solid recommendations.