OUGD502 - Networking: Own Business Cards

As I am going to two web design events this week with speakers from the industry, I wanted to have my own business cards ready.

Although I wanted the business cards to look good, I have limited time and money so I can't add any nice printing finishes such as letterpress. 
I was thinking about screenprinting and embossing as these are two things I can do myself, but 1. I can't find any nice thick stock apart from mountboard, and 2. I need the cards to be registered in line and for them to be trimmed completely straight. Two things that might not happen if I do them myself.

I ordered some stock from Ebay, which is 350gsm and pre-cut into business card size so I don't have to worry about cutting them myself which was my main concern. For printing, I can screenprint no problem.
However, when it came it was coated and didn't have the right texture. It's too smooth and I want a more textured finish. Also, 350gsm isn't as thick as I had hoped.

I then came across moo.com which does superthick (700gsm) business cards on high quality paper, which is exactly what I want. Plus they had a 25% sale on, and when I quoted what I wanted it wasn't expensive at all!

However, the catch was the delivery time. Even the rush pricing was 6 business days, and the shipping price shot up a lot too. I needed them in 3 days so this wasn't an option. However, now I know about it I could use them in the future.

I then came across printed.com. They do business cards, and let you choose a lot of different options for printing digitally. They have the choice of recycled card at 350gsm which I think would be better than the stock I ordered from Ebay because it is uncoated.

These are some of the options you can choose.

And the quote I got - so cheap!! 

To make things even better, the turn around you can get is very fast, so this is the perfect option for me.

I ordered my cards of here in the end, and if they look as cheap as they are, I will still have time to screenprint before the event.

Here is the design for the front of my card. I wasn't sure what to title myself as, but I have produced a live website, done a web design placement and designed a lot of websites so I thought it was appropriate to use web design. I was just worried about using this as the people going to the events are obviously professionals. I also put graphic because that's what I study and I'm not limited to web. I also included my Twitter name because everyone uses it and it is a more informal way to get to know me.

I created a custom typeface for my name to act as a logo, and it is fine just for this week. I will do a better job when we self branding later on in the year.