Business cards

Our business cards are normally printed on smooth Xerox Colotech+ 300gsm* card in full colour or black only. The cards can be printed with a white border or to the edge e.g. with a photograph or colour background. Printing to the edge costs more due to fewer cards per sheet and more printing. We can also print on Xerox Colotech+ gloss 250gsm card or Xerox Colotech+ supergloss 250gsm card. Note that the supergloss coating is only on one side of the sheet, the other side is matt. As the laser printing we use has a matt finish, we do not recommend using either gloss card if you have a photo/image in the background as this loses much of the gloss effect.

*300gsm is a relatively lightweight card for business cards - other printers may use 350-450gsm - however we cannot print onto anything heavier. If this is of particular concern to yourself, please call in to see a sample before placing an order.

The sample prices below include our standard artwork setting up charge which covers most basic designs. If you require something more complicated, then the price may increase. If you provide your own design ready-made, then we will reduce the prices shown by £2.05. Prices include VAT.

If you require a different quantity or have any questions, please ask us for a quotation. If you want a card in any other size than 85mm x 54mm then we will need to produce a new template which will cost extra.

NEW! Plastic boxes with lids to hold approx 120 business cards for just 50p. (inc VAT)

With White Border

Printing to edge

• All prices include basic artwork and VAT at 17.5%
• If you provide your own artwork, reduce the price shown by £2.05 for single sided cards or 88p for double sided cards.
• The Add-on for Black side 2 price can be added to either the basic price for Black or Colour printing. The Add-on for Colour 2 sides price can only be added to the basic Colour printing price.
• The gloss 250gsm card is cheaper than the normal 300gsm card therefore the add-on prices shown above are negative, i.e. deduct the amount shown from the standard price.

Tips for producing your own artwork

• Our finished card size is 85mm wide by 54mm high. If you are making cards with a white border, please ensure everything fits within a 2.5mm border i.e. maximum size of 80mm x 49mm.
• If you want cards printed to the edge, then you need to provide a bleed of 5mm to allow for any shifting. This will be cut off the finished card so it should not be anything you must have. Also ensure that all important information on the card fits within a 2.5mm border of the finished size. See sample picture below.
• Vector/Non-bitmap Artwork: Vector artwork, as created with programs like Adobe Illustrator and Macromedia FreeHand, generally gives better results than bitmap artwork (e.g. from Adobe Photoshop) especially if the image has to be scaled larger. The best format to supply artwork in is EPS - Encapsulated PostScript, with a Mac preview. If this is not possible, the next best vector format is PDF (Acrobat) as we are (usually) able to convert this to EPS. Ensure all fonts and any graphics are embedded within the EPS or PDF file for maximum compatibility. See this page for an explanation of the two types of file.
• Bitmap Artwork:If you cannot supply vector artwork, we can also accept a wide range of bitmap formats. Please use a minimum of 300dpi up to a maximum of 600dpi at the actual printed size. For best results, we recommend that you save in a non-lossy format such as TIFF, Adobe PhotoShop or Windows Bitmap rather than JPEG. We can, of course, use JPEG, but you may well get better results from a different bitmap format. N.B. If you use Adobe PhotoShop, please flatten the image before sending it to us.
• More information on file formats and how to make PDFs for free can be found on our file formats page.
• We can make cards from programs such as Word or PowerPoint but bear in mind that we may not have any non-standard fonts that you use.
• If you use the business card template in Microsoft Publisher then you will have to cut the cards out yourself or we can try and use your design with our template.
• We do not recommend that you have a border line as shifting may occur when printed or cut and this line will then be off-centre.

Explanation of bleed

When we print and cut the cards, there may be a small amount of shift. To ensure that your background image prints to the edge on each card (i.e. no white bits), you need to produce an image that is larger than the finished card size, that is 95 x 64mm (to the red line in the image below). We then cut 5mm off each edge to give you a finished card size of 85 x 54mm. Any text and important elements of the card's design must be kept at least 2.5mm inside the finished edge of the card (inside the blue line in the image below).

You may find it helpful to print this guide which shows the required dimensions for a business card with printing to the edge.

u-print.com is a division of Materialise Ltd, a University of Manchester Students' Union company.



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Telephone:
(0161) 306 3269.

Post:
u-print.com,
Barnes Wallis Building,
The University of Manchester,
PO Box 88,
Sackville Street,
Manchester, UK.
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u-print.com : the original Manchester student printshop since 1988.
Previously known as umistprint.com and Manutech CopyShop.

This page was last updated on Tue, Aug 26, 2008 at 3:00 pm using BBEdit 6.1.2.

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