three and a half by two

at the job i had last summer i printed and cut thousands of business cards. they'd come out in slick color on 60# glossy tabloid sheets, to be cut in half and in half again and trimmed and sliced down into their final shape of three and half by two inches. i had a sharp and swift electric cutter and i'd cut hundreds of cards at a time, measuring each stack exactly, watching the edges of extra just fall away from my beautiful finished product. i loved the feel of the smooth stacks of cards, every edge matched up, every corner the same as every other corner. perfect.

which is not to say that i didn't make my mistakes. there were days when the bleed on those nail salon cards just would not match up. there were sometimes one or two cuts that went a little short, throwing off the symmetry of the whole batch. size matters when it comes to business cards. if the edges of those cards don't fit that standard dimension, they'll look rubbish in that little business card holder on mr. client's reception desk. we can't have that.

today i printed 200 business cards for my sister.
they are simple black and white things, but elegant enough. lacking both a capable printer and the glossy tabloid paper to go in it, i eeked these out on plain old letter sized cardstock. and i cut them by hand, two sheets at a time.

once i got used to it, i accumulated a lovely set of two-inch strips. trim the edges off those and you get two by seven inch strips, and then all that's left is to chop them all in half. it would've been the work of seconds with that nice electric cutter. today it took me a large chunk of the evening. the edges of the pile aren't quite as smooth as the tall, perfect ones i used to do for nail salons and catering companies... but they feel just as good to my fingers. either way i get to hold them in my hand and say 'i made these.'