See more on the first two screwed-up batches from another printer after the jump.

This saga started several weeks ago. Since I was quitting my job to freelance full-time, I wanted to get some new business cards printed. A friend at work who does all the graphics work for his church recommended overnightprints.com (no linky for you!). Their business cards looked nice, so I placed an order. When I received it, it was wrong: the colors were bad, the backs were randomly miscolored (it’s suppose to be green, but some of then were inexplicably orange), and the corners weren’t rounded. I figured I was getting what I had paid for, so I chalked it up to a lesson learned.

I asked for a refund and started looking around for another printer. Instead of refunding my money, they reprinted them, noting especially the rounded corners request, etc. A few days later, they arrived, with — wait for it — no rounded corners, even though the box had printed on it in big letters “ROUNDED CORNERS.” To add insult to injury the colors were off again AND the backs randomly had splotches of BLUE on them. Seriously. So, I emailed them again, asking for a refund. I got a somewhat apologetic email back with instructions on how to CALL to get my Return Merchandise Authorization. Really? Return the crappy cards? So I called the number, which was a RECORDING. Said recording told me to leave my contact info and they’d get back to me in a few days.

Nearly two weeks later, and nada. It was just $17, so I’m done and chalking it up as a good (and cheap) lesson learned.

In any event, the order from print100.com was delivered superfast and the cards look great. I’ll definitely be dealing with them again.

The first piece is a cool post of a book cover by Alvin Lustig. Al- who? Alvin Lustig was a great illustrator and designer in the 20s and 30s and 40s who died prematurely in HIS 40s in the, erm, 40s. I think. In any event, he was marvelously talented and died way too young. He was well-known for his excellent book covers, and he illustrated some of the best books published during that period, including F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, which just happens to be my wife’s favorite novel. Luckily, I saw on Swiss Miss that they were producing a limited-edition serious of hand-screen prints of four of Lustig’s book covers. Also luckily, it was the week before Valentine’s Day, and I was drawing a blank for a gift for The Wife. So, I ordered the Lustig Gatsby print for her, which, as one might surmise, she loved. It’s currently out being framed (still), but there’s a pic that shows what it looks like. More pics when we get it hung.

Stay tuned for more art!