Who designs,prints and laminates there own cards?

Who designs, prints and laminates there own business/photography cards?
I do, and thought I'd share a few recent card designs which I have printed
and laminated.

I've noticed that when someone I've met gives me one of there cards that,
more often than not, they are just plain text with name, website etc and
perhaps a small logo of a camera, or something similar. To me, I think these
sort of cards will make people less likely to visit your photography sitem or
wherever you share your images, than one where you have your own
picture printed on it to show people a little of what type of photography
you do and an example of how it looks.

I prefer to do my own rather than pay a company to print them for me for
several reasons, one being that I want to be able to print multiple
designs rather than be stuck with just one. The next being, I want to
laminate them to give them an even more pro look and feel.

The only tools you need to do all this are; 1) printer, 2) paper cutter (£15 or
more), 3) lamintator (£15 or less), 4) photo quality paper (thickness not an
issue if laminating) and 5) credit card size laminate pouches (£1.50 per 100)
and, of course, some patience to do all the cutting, then laminating.

I love doing all this and when I see the results of my cards, I don't want to
give them away

Here are a few of my recent card designs that have been printed and laminated. These reflect my main subjects/categories that I love to photograph.

Please feel free to show your own card designs here, whether done yourself or sent away.

Nice one DJ... so how much does each card end up costing you?

Thats very difficult to say Azz. I allready have tons of photo quality paper and bundles of laminate pouches @ £1.50 per 100. So , it's really down to the ammount of ink I use and which printer I choose to do the print outs from. I have 3 printers - Epson R800 photo, Epson photo 950 (very difficult to find ink for now) and a Canon all in one. Any of these printers will give me excellent quality prints at this size and of course the little Canon would be the cheapest to run off a load of these cards.

It may or may not work out cheaper than sending off to a commercial printers, but I prefer to do it myself either way. I can also choose to run off as many as I like rather than have a minimum from a commercial printers that might end up being wasted in the long run, as I said you only get one design from a commercial printer per x ammount so, really, I think Im better off doing them myself

Very nice work there DJ. Best I've seen.

Thanks Bob.