Metric Paper

In 1922 Germany came up with a standard for paper sizes that had nothing to do with aesthetics. DIN476 was devised by Dr. Walter Porstmann in order to save paper. 

A sheet of "A0" paper is 841mm × 1189mm, which is equal to1 square meter (well, minus a skosh). And you may have noticed that metric paper is not sold on pounds bond but in grams per square meter.

The proportion is 1 × √2. Porstmann's Big Idea of print room hygiene is that, under his system, every time you cut the paper in half parallel to the small side you get two sheets with the same short to long side ratio. So the fourth time you cut a sheet smaller, you get A4 paper, which is 1/16th of a meter in area and -- Look, Ma!! -- has the same ratio of short side to long side as the A0 one meter sheet. That must have really tickled Herr Doktor Porstmann's über-hygienic Teutonic fancy.

So anyway that is why metric "letter size" paper sort of looks like a teenager that grew up in a vegetarian home. 

I couldn't leave well enough alone, and had to look up whether print room hygiene scales down to business card size. If there is any respect for Porstmann's ghost, German business cards should be A8, a tad smaller than what we call business card size, at 52.5×74mm. 

Well there is such a thing as A8. I note that the official A8 dimensions are not as calculated, but are fudged down to 52×74mm. Hmm.  

And A8 is NOT what is/was used for business cards in Metric Land. One must say auf wiedersehen to DIN476 and Porstmann's Big Idea because it just didn't cut it as a Small Idea. One must now step over to ISO 7810 ID dash 1, the separate Business Card standard. Why? Because the metric A# system is just too skinny and anemic looking, especially next to one's collection of healthy American business cards. 

So: what dimensions did they adopt for ISO 7810 ID-1 ?  

As close as they could come to 2-1/8" × 3-3/8"! The USA card size! But it's metric so 54×85.6mm.  

And I just KNOW down to my toes that European printers are laying out their business cards 3-up on their A4 card stock, cutting them out, like a normal person, with their paper guillotine, and leaving their snippels on the print room floor -- for later eco-hygienic recycling, of course.