Inkjet printers rock. We produce really nice signage, counter cards and invitations on a canon i9900. It prints 13 x 19 full bleed. The cost per unit is not really cheap because the disposables are expensive, but if you need to produce 4 signs, then 5 dollars worth of ink, paper, and foam core per sign is not a big expense. I produced my wedding invitations on an ink jet. I used inkjet friendly water color paper, transparent vellum, punched them by hand and bound them with silver cord. Very nice result, but a lot of work. I also do the studio holiday card on the inkjet since I only send out 20 or 30. Below is art of last years and tried to simulate the paper texture that I used in photoshop. Got a nice letterpress kind of feel to go with the idea.

Micro Stock is the new business model for stock photography and illustration. Sites charge very low prices for high resolution, royalty-free, stock art and photographers (supposedly) make money on volume. I don’t actually know how good this has been for photographers, but it has been great for designers. We now can comp stuff with high res art and get quality art for low budget projects. Here are links to some of the best micro stock sites in no particular order:

Fotolia
istockphoto
shutterstock
dreamstime
123rf
stockxpert
featurepics

I design a magazine that has no art budget. I am continually forced to come up with creative solutions for cheap art. One thing I have done to get art for stories is lay objects on my flatbed scanner. The scanner gets less and less use in this world of $5 stock photos, but this is one way to put it to use. I had a story about candy sales in convenience stores so I bought a bunch of candy: lifesavers, m&m’s, wurther’s originals and threw them on the flatbed with a sheet of white paper over them. Works great. Click for larger images.