Business Card Sizes & Shapes
Elegante Press Studio has created and printed a lot of various sizes and shapes business cards (check out this gallery), sometimes card shapes are really sophisticated, but we are always very pleased with the originality of the people who are determined to transcend the settled standards. However, not standard size and shape can cause additional problems. If the cards are bigger than standard ones they do not fit into the business card holder, it’s hard to put it in the catalog, sometimes the sophisticated card can be very beautiful, but completely non-functional, it would not even be kept in a stack of standard cards. Therefore, before choosing the size and shape of the card, you always have to think carefully about who the recipient will be and whether he/she will be comfortable to store it.
Standard Business Card Dimensions
Here you can see business card size standards used across the world. Standards make life easier for everybody, however, not everything is that simple – there’s not one standard size, each country has its own business cards size standards, sometimes even few.
In the table below you can see how standard business card sizes differ in each country.
Standard | Size in Millimeters | Size in Inches | ||
---|---|---|---|---|
ISO 7810 ID-1 | 85.60 | 53.98 | 3.370 | 2.125 |
United States | 88.9 | 50.8 | 3.5 | 2 |
Canada | 89 | 51 | 3.5 | 2 |
Australia | 90 | 55 | 3.543 | 1.968 |
China | 90 | 54 | 3.543 | 2.125 |
Czech Republic | 90 | 50 | 3.543 | 1.968 |
France | 85 | 55 | 3.346 | 2.165 |
Germany | 85 | 55 | 3.346 | 2.165 |
Hungary | 90 | 50 | 3.543 | 1.968 |
Italy | 85 | 55 | 3.346 | 2.165 |
Netherlands | 85 | 55 | 3.346 | 2.165 |
Japan | 91 | 55 | 3.582 | 2.165 |
Russia | 90 | 50 | 3.543 | 1.968 |
Scandinavia | 90 | 55 | 3.54 | 2.165 |
Slovakia | 90 | 50 | 3.543 | 1.968 |
Spain | 85 | 55 | 3.346 | 2.165 |
Switzerland | 85 | 55 | 3.346 | 2.165 |
United Kingdom | 85 | 55 | 3.346 | 2.165 |
Based on our experience, we recommend to make everything simpler and to stick with two basic standard business card sizes – American and European.
Business Card Bleed
Sometimes we get files with very strange card dimensions. So we always ask whether the dimensions of a business cards really have to be like this. Mostly the card itself appears to be standard dimensions, just the file marked with bleed areas. A variety of editors can be used to create business card designs that export design to vector based PDF format. The problem occurs because we are not always able to see requirements set by the vector editor. Please note that we don’t need files prepared in enlarged sheet format (enlarged business card format). Do not set larger sheet size because of bleed, just make sure the objects that should be till the card border would cross-cutting lines, and those cutting lines mark in magenta color as shown in the design picture.
Round Corners & Die Cut Shapes
If you want to have business cards more special, but still standard, we can offer all four or just a few corners rounded. This is an extra service that we do with a special corner rounding tool. The more expensive service is the individual shape cutting because this operation requires a special cutting knife production and additional die cut pass through cutting press.
Before designing a letterpress business cards, check out what corner radius we can make and what existing cutting blades form we have that we could offer more pocket-friendly quote.