I must say that I’m quite pleased with Avery and a recent product of theirs.

You see, I went to Staples with a very simple MS Publisher standard TEMPLATE to make some business cards. I was ready to give in on some of the coloring options (like make the artistic brackets the same color, as opposed to the current black on the left and gold on the right). I could go with all black, or even drop the brackets all together.

Before you accuse me of printing ignorance, let me say that I do understand that professional printing is very different from desktop publishing. However, what I was told wasn’t exactly acceptable.

Here’s a paraphrase: Hmmm. The best I could do is 4 colors for $115 (1000 cards), but we don’t have that shade of green, or the gold, and they won’t do the fade [a simple gradient that my 8 year old kid can replicate].

The result: I left and went to Wal-Mart. I picked up another color ink cartridge for my printer, and then headed over to the printer paper section and found my saving grace. Avery now puts out a thicker weight business card sheet, with NO PERFORATIONS. Anyway, I just printed a test page, and only a trained eye could tell the difference between my cards and the “economy” cards from a professional printer.

The card sheets are #28877. Head over to Avery or to your local office supply store and check them out. For those of us on a very tight budget, being able to print some quality business cards on demand is a nice strategic advantage.

Disclaimer: These cards may not be new, but they’re new to me. I also won’t be held responsible if you buy the product and then print extraordinarily ugly cards.