Advice needed on printing brochures

[achee]

Hello APers!

I'm producing some brochures, but I haven't done this sort of print run before, so I'm after some advice.

I'm planning on 12 pages (5 openings), around 200gsm, pages approx 200x200mm, about 50/50 images and text, stapled, print runs of about 150-200x at a time. I'm not sure yet if I'll do a heavier cover page or if it'll be all the same.

Think of a nice credit card rewards program catalog - that's what I've been thinking of regarding construction / feel.

Naturally I'm looking for a good cost / quality balance - I want it to look professional, and cost peanuts!

Questions:

1) This is a job for 'digital printing', right? That means colour laserjet, because it's too big of a run for injet and too small of a run for offset, right? So I'm thinking officeworks, snap, etc...

2) Any suggestions on paper?

3) Is 200x200mm an ok size, cost-wise? I'm wondering if there are 'sweet-spot' sizes that mean minimum paper wastage, and if that has a significant impact on cost.

Thanks!

[junqbox]

Definately a digital laser print. I'd recommend speaking with a couple of the people you intend to quote on the job, to see what they can produce and what their recommendations are. They will have different paper stocks, etc., available you may not have considered. It would be strongly reomended to take a mock-up of what you have in mind with you as it it's easier to discuss the brief with a hard example. You may want a slightly lighter paper stock for the internal pages, it's more likely to fold better, providing a better finished product.

BTW- It won't cost peanuts, or probably anywhere near it, depending on your valuation of peanuts.

[Bennymiata]

You might find it cheaper to do a slightly bigger run and get it off-set printed.

Digital prinitng is very expensive when done in bulk, as the toner costs so much.
We have a pretty good colour laser printer here at work, that does double sided copies etc., and we did a run of 150 3-sheet catalogues, and the toner for this job cost almost $1,300!

We now get 500 copies printed for a couple of hundred dollars and just use the leftovers for packaging.

[achee]

Thanks! I called one printer who does both digital and offset, and he said the break-even would be around the 600-800x mark. Bennymiata... maybe your colour laser isn't suited to high volume? I dunno. I'll ask around some more.

[kiwi]

also try vistaprint

[achee]

Vistaprint... they seem to be inexpensive if I'm willing to wait a long time for delivery... that might work if I get a few done up quickly elsewhere first, thanks!

[soulman]

When we do outside print jobs here, I leave all these kinds of questions up to the person/business doing the printing. They should know what's going to be the most cost effective way of doing it and should be happy to talk it over with you too. I would stick to ISO paper sizes.

You may get a cheaper result using somewhere like OfficeWorks, but a good printer will give you a quality result, which I imagine might be worthwhile given that you're promoting your business.

We have a pretty good colour laser printer here at work, that does double sided copies etc., and we did a run of 150 3-sheet catalogues, and the toner for this job cost almost $1,300!

Whoa! That's not normal. I could print your brochures with my Epson 3800 for less than that. Our office laser (HP) is very cost effective. We print full colour brochures on it regularly. Double sided A4 seems to be $0.30-$0.60 depending on the amount of colour & coverage.