Dear All,
Business cards have not been raised here for some time. As business cards
are an immediate statement about your personal attitude to measuring units,
I wish to raise the issue again for you consideration and comment.
Business cards
Possibly you have in your pocket or purse a standard business card � or a
card that your printer told you was a 'standard' size.
Here is a summary of some of the business cards I have collected and
measured:
Australian business cards are 55 mm x 90 mm
Danish business cards are 50 x 90 mm.
English business cards are 55 x 90 mm
French business cards are 55 x 90 mm
German business cards are 55 x 90 mm
Japanese business cards are 55 x 90 mm.
Norwegian business cards are 50 x 90 mm.
South African business cards are 50 mm x 90 mm
USA business cards are about 50.8 x 88.9 mm (They are, more accurately, 2
inches x 3-1/2 inches).
As you can see, individual and groups of nations are the same size, but
there is no such thing as a single International 'standard' business card.
There are several quite similar in size but there are no fixed international
standards.
To conserve paper, card, and therefore trees we could decide to use an
International Organization for Standardization (ISO) paper sizes, such as:
ISO A8 paper or card is 52 mm x 74 mm.
ISO B8 paper or card is 62 mm x 88 mm
The B8 size seems closest to the business cards that are in current use.
Credit cards
Credit cards on the other hand are made strictly to an International
Standard since they have to fit into the various card readers and bank
telling machines in whichever country they are.
Credit cards are approximately 86 mm x 55 mm so I suspect that they�re based
on the old measures of 3 3/8 inches x 2 1/8 inches. As you can see old
International Standards may be based on old measures until the technology
changes � say to face recognition, iris recognition, or to fingerprint
analysis � when SI units will be adopted as all new International Standards
are now written using SI units.
I would appreciate your comments.
Cheers,
Pat Naughtin CAMS
Geelong, Australia
