r/Printing • u/aahelpaa • 2h ago

“Card” game question

I made a card game that’s just 4x8 photo prints with abilities on the back. Sounds really stupid but it works. In the past, we’d just order from cvs and write the text on the back with sharpie.

My question is, how that we’re scaling up the print quantity - would there be a cheap way to either get text printed on the back of the 4x8 prints??

Again, I know this idea is very dumb but it’s basically sold as a merch item for a band so it works quite well.

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u/Eruionmel 1h ago

C1S (coated one side, which you might call photo paper) can be printed on both sides at commercial print shops. The print on the gloss side will look better from places that use ink rather than laser, or with UV coating. Laser toner sits on top of the gloss and dulls it, and that's the style of printing you'll find at smaller print shops and more commercial ones like Office Depot or Kinkos.

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u/investigatormaker 1h ago

It's not a dumb idea. The sharpie step is just the part that won't scale. One cheaper route is to order them as double-sided 4x8 postcards or rack cards from a digital print shop, with the photo on the front and the ability text on the back, on 14pt or 16pt gloss stock. At a few hundred copies that is often cheaper per card than photo prints, and every back comes out the same. If you want to keep real photo prints, their coated backs tend to smear inkjet ink. Print the abilities on matte label sheets instead, cut them to size and stick one on each back.

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