I’ve had some really (crap) old business cards for Lyrical Media for a while now, and a couple of weeks ago when I visited dConstruct I found myself with no cards to give anyone who I met. Whilst at dConstruct I heard great things about Moo.com, so I decided to give them a try!
Designing & Ordering
Moo do really great prices on “MiniCards” – which are basically small business cards. When I ordered my last set of cards from a local print company it cost me £70 and I had to have 1,000 of the bloody things. I think in a year and a half I only ever gave away about 30. Moo on the other hand, do 100 cards for £10 – which is a much better number and price point for me personally.
Another thing to note is that the 1,000 business cards from the local print company all had to be the exact same design. With Moo, every single card can be different!
So with that in mind I threw together a simple design based on the Lyrical Media tag line, and did 5 colour variations (right). I wanted them to be bright and vibrant colours, so that if you saw one lying around on a coffee table, you’d notice it and pick it up! I also included a small logo, and a url to a sneeze page which will (it’s not up yet) show a simple custom page with pictures of the Moo cards and a heading of “It was nice to meet you”.
The order process was one of the best I think I’ve ever had from a website; really simple, really easy, and really quick. You upload your designs, customise the back of the card, and that’s it! You then get automated email updates telling you when your order has been received, printed, and dispatched. I also picked up a MiniCard Holder, which is a very funky little case that you can attach to your keyring.
Then it was time to play the waiting game.
Arrival & Unboxing
Today they arrived, which makes it about a week door-to-door, not bad at all! Here’s the unboxing video:
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7IgsmxuKwu0
The Verdict
For £10 (update: there was a 15% discount going when I purchased, standard price is £12) these are pretty awesome, the quality is more than decent and I actually really like the size. The packaging in particular is also really nice, the box that the cards come in is hard plastic with the Moo logo set onto the front (the little droplet). Overall I’m really impressed, I’ll definitely be ordering more when I run out – and the clever kids at Moo make that pretty simple too: Your order is saved and stored in your account, so re-ordering the same cards is a 1 click process. Win.
My only niggle is with the cutting, you can see from my mockups at the top right of this article that I left a decent amount of space around the edge of the designs – which I lost in the end product. However I think this is my own fault as I always forget to allow for bleed and trim margins when designing for print, so I can’t really fault Moo here.
What Do You Think?
Love them? Hate them? Let me know in the comments. This was a totally unbiased review, no affiliate links or free products here – I really like what I got!
Love the cards! They look great, and the unboxing was quite an experience in itself. It’s almost like Moo.com expect you to do an unoxing video! :D
Thanks mate! I think it’s cause they have such good packaging – it just kind of begs to be shown off in the same way Apple’s does. Very nice little strategy they’ve got going there :)
Totally agree with you re the price and they look really really good.
I have 500 crappy business cards here that I hate. May well be getting some from moo.com in the next few days methinks.
They look like really nice, thick cards!!!
Nice cards, nice video. They look really high quality. Also, I loved the “omgwtfbbq” popup when you fumbled one of the cards lol!
Thanks Bryan! I think the quality is really decent for the price – glad you liked the embedded comment too! :)
Hey John, your Moo cards look great! We ordered the standard size business cards from Moo.com which were also really good quality, may have to order some Mini Cards after seeing yours! I have to say that the speed of the printing and postage from Moo.com is excellent!
wow, those are nice cards. and i was happy to find out after going to their site that us folks in the states can order through their US store. $19.99 for the same box of 100 minicards. i like the size, too. makes them stand out a little more than regular business cards. the fact that they specialize in small batches with that kind of customization makes them a lot more flexible for small biz owners and freelancers. definitely a win.
The packaging looks like its been improved a bit since I saw some last, nice designs though and good video
Looks great but I agree about the margins.
I think I’ll be ordering my first batch from Moo.com thanks to your review.
Cheers!
I remember when I first went into business in 1999 – there was NOTHING like moo.com at the time, and I would have loved to have bought just a hundred or so cards, etc – like you and others have said, I ended up with huge box fulls of cards (letterheads & comp slips too!) from a local printer who wouldn’t turn on his machine for less than a 1000 item print run! My kids are still using the unused letterheads and comp slips as scrap paper to draw on, 10 years later!
I can’t believe I just watched a vid of someone unpacking business cards … and enjoyed it! (Really must get out more). Nice cards, John. I got some from moo as a test earlier this year – great quality and they certainly know how to package and market a product – print with personality … who’d have thought? ps what’s the music you used?
Look well nice mate…. nice one ! Making me feel even more guilty that i havent got my own done yet… although im still a bit freaked that i thought watching someone unveil their business cards from an envelope was actually pretty cool…. right off to watch again!! :-)
I just received my first moocards the other day, and was just as impressed! Love them, the unboxing was the first time I realised that the whole process has really been thought through. They included special welcome messages as it was a first order – clever!
Ordered a second lot that day (as I realised that I’d left off the web address like a dummy!) and they include different messages as it wasn’t my first order any more. Small thing, but impressive.
sweet! :-]
Hello, hope you don’t mind me butting in, but I work for MOO.
Just thought, if you do order again, we have a template here which might help, as it has the bleed and trim on there too. (Just remember to fill the bleed with colour, but nothing important):
http://www.moo.com/en/help/help.php?page=format-guide
We’re actually working on a better way of displaying the templates as they are a bit hidden.
Anyway. Feel free to delete this if it feels too spammy.
Before i go though, OMGWTFBBQ really made me laugh – and sorry we missed you at dConstruct, a few of the MOO peeps were lurking there too.
Hi Denise, thanks so much for leaving a comment! That makes my “feedback form” on the Moo site redundant, as a template was my only suggestion! Thanks for the link, and glad the video made you laugh :)
I use Moo minicards for wedding clients to give out to their guests. I use photos of the couple on one side and the URL of the online gallery with the wedding photos on on the other. They’re always really popular, and the clients can choose as many images as they want.
There is a PSD template (and a jpg IIRC) on the site which shows you the bleed and safe areas so you don’t get the issue with the cropping. Worth downloading before you order.
That’s a really cool use of MiniCards Andrew – I’ll have to share that with my friend who’s just about to get into wedding photography!
Hmmm… reading you blog and the comments about the mini cards really intrigued me. I might try and order something out for myself too. They ship anywhere in the world, right? I took a quick look at their site after reading the comments here and I think I saw that they make some other cool stuff. Those small card magnets they call “moognets” really caught my attention! Thanks for writing about this experience. :-)
I got some from moo.com not to long ago but they didn’t look near as good as yours did :P
I have mini moo cards for my business as well. When I hand these little jewels to people, they really notice them because they are different.
Your cards are great John!
I laughed out loud when you dropped the card in the video! Too funny! I loved the subtitle!
Out of interest – what did you use to record this video?
My iPhone 3GS – apologies for the poor quality!
The quality isn’t that bad and thanks for letting me know!
These cards look great. Thanks for sharing, and Im definitely going to be placing an order with these guys soon. The presentation and packaging alone makes me want to purchase.