What’s up stranger? Let’s talk paper sizes.

...but first, if you’re in a hurry, here’s a shortcut to the sizes themselves.

Still here? Fantastic.

Paper doesn’t really have a size, by which we mean that it can be made at almost any size, depending on the process.

... but thankfully, some really smart gentlemen decided to try and make things easier for a world that was growing ever more sophisticated. About 100 years ago (1921), they brilliantly coined the standard “A Series” of paper sizes that most people use in the world today.

The A Series
To make things consistent with the metric system, the inventors of the A-Series started with the paper size “A0”, and intended it’s surface area to equal that of one square metre. They got close enough.

From there each subsequent paper size is defined by splitting the previous size in half. For example, if you cut an A0 sheet down from one long edge to the other, you will end up with two A1 sheets.

Other Standards
The B series is used much more rarely, suffice to say that B0 has a width of 1 metre, and works the same way as the A Series in how smaller sizes are measured. Useful in some specific cases.

The C series was built for envelope sizes. Each designed to be a little bigger to neatly fit the A Series paper sizes inside.

Business cards sizes have multiple standards across the world. Here in Australia we have one that most wallets and purses are build to. That’s not to say you can’t experiment with different sizes...

DL stands for “Domestic Letter”. It’s the standard size for most flyers, and anything that is designed to fit inside a standard mail envelope.

Custom Paper Sizes
Yet, while having widely accepted and commonly used paper sizes can be helpful, sometimes we want to break the rules.If you have a custom project and you’d like to bend the way things are normally done, we can easily cut the paper to any size you’d like.