I’ve been busy the last couple of months putting things in place to get Ilumia Images up and running as its own business and as part of that I needed some printing done for business cards and some other items. I spent quite a bit of time on Google looking at options etc. and send off for sample print packs from 4 different printers

Delivery

The first three of those all arrived within 3 days and all presented very nicely. The fourth, from JAK Ink arrived after 8 days, one day after I’d placed my order elsewhere.

Presentation

Printed.com

A clean white A5 envelope, with an A5 folder and a number of A5 sample sheets of paper in them. The papers also had a nice touch on the back of them, showing how a set of colour swatches would be printed on to that paper, which I think is a great touch.

Solopress.com

Solopress were the flashiest, sending out a perfect bound sample book of various papers and finishes in a metallic blue bubble envelope which I wish I’d taken a photograph of. Not only did it show off their different papers and finishes very well, it also showcased their binding and felt very professional and something I could easily keep on my shelf for future reference.

digitalprinting.co.uk

Another folder, this time A4 inside the nice white envelope. Inside the folder there were a selection of items such as business cards, stickers, compliment slips, postcards etc. that showed off their range of products and finishes.

JAK Inc

Talk about disappointing. After waiting for a week after the first sample pack turned up I was expecting something a bit special, how wrong I was. What I got was a small pink envelope with four postcard sized print samples and two business card samples inside. The only indication of who these samples were from was the handwritten “Jak Inc” on the inside of the envelope flap. For a company that makes products that are all about presentation and making a good impression, their first impressions were incredibly poor compared to their similarly priced competition.

The samples

All of the samples were of a good quality with nothing really to chose between them, despite what my phone pictures above might be telling you.

Decision

I picked Printed.com for my business cards, as only they and JAK Inc offered the velvet finish I wanted. For the compliment slips and letterheads I went with Solopress as they were considerably cheaper than Printed.com and digitalprinting.co.uk. Once everything arrives I’ll post up a review of both of them.