Making My First Website/Business Cards

[ImaginingOrange]

I'm wanting to invest a little bit in making myself appear more "Professional" as a photographer. This includes an upgrade in business cards, and I need an actual website as well. From what I've gathered, MOO and UVCards seem to be the best place to order from. I'd love some of my photos on cards, unfortunately, MOO is rather expensive for that. I've been looking through the business card thread. Is there any place online to build business cards? Templates, etc?

As far as websites go, I'm looking at SquareSpace and PhotoMerchant. I prefer SquareSpace's template and customization/build options, but the fact that customers can order prints directly off a PhotoMerchant website is badass. However, in PM's examples section, all their customers websites look pretty much the same... Where did yall build your websites? Are there any other sites I should be looking into?

I know there is the Website thread, but nobody says where they built their site. SO if yall could post examples of yours with the site you built it at, that would be awesome. And any info on the above two sites would be primo.

[Hikin Mike]

No templates for me. I used Illustrator to create my logo and business card. I use a text editor (Notepad++) to code the website and FTP'd the files using FileZilla Client.

Site is in my sig...

[ImaginingOrange]

Really, nobody? Someone surely must have created their own website with an online template...

[Patrick]

Vista prints has cheap cards. Over the years I've ordered cards from several online companies as well as local printers. The last cards I ordered were from Moo.
It is true, you get what you pay for. I will be ordering from Moo from now on.
Relatively speaking, they're not expensive for what you get.

I've heard nothing but good things about Squarespace. Just about every hosting company now offers a web site builder program with samples of what you can do. You can make it look less "cookie cutter" by adding your own touches of course.

If you want to sell photos and use a template site your options are quite limited.
You could purchase some sort of shopping software and use it with a template site too.

I read that flickr has some sort of integration with Mpix which allows you to sale photos.

[letsbewild]

I like www.Overnightprints.com for my business cards - I usually wait until they have a really good sale and then the cards are usually only a few bucks plus shipping. The paper stock is thick and they've always done a good job with my business cards and postcards. You can usually find coupon codes for them online too.

As for websites, you have tons of options. I like using a self hosted installation of WordPress...you have a lot of freedom to customize it however you want.

[michael Lee]

Www.22slides.com. $10 bucks a month with a free trial. Support has been awesome and I love the horizontal scrolling.

[criTalon]

If you are going for quality business cards, check out tasteofink.com. They are a bit pricier, so be sure to know what you want, cuz it's not a small investment.

[fotojennik]

If you want a website with templates that allows people to place orders have you looked at SmugMug and Zenfolio?

[Drixar]

If you want Qaulity Business cards i either suggest MOO or you design one yourself using illustrator (or indesign) and source a printer close to you, if you go this route you'll have alot more options but ofcourse you get what you pay for no matter what way you go.

On all template sites you can get an ebuyer kind of option but this wouldnt be as smooth as the photomerchant.net if you ask me that one looks fantastic, have you tried a trial? if not i suggest to use the 14day trial just to see if you like all the custom options available, most of these site will let you code your own aswell, ofcourse some dont.

if you do want a logo/Business card drawn up in illustrator PM me, ill be able to do something.

[ShotByTom]

I used photocrati wordpress theme, very much like a template, to create my website:

www.wildharephoto.com

[GwagDesigns]

I build my first website coding within SmugMug, and use it mainly for event work and mass galleries/print sales, www.gwagdesigns.com. My portfolio, www.davehintzphoto.com resides on squareSpace, couldn't be happier. Business cards done in photoshop and printed though overnightprints.com