We\u2019re surrounded by paper on an every day basis, but do you ever wonder why we use 8.5\u201d by 11\u201d as our standard size? I mean it\u2019s a pretty bizarre ratio\u2026.\u00a0 why not something more divisible like 9\u201d by 12\u201d or something that folds perfectly into square sectors?
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\nDealing with papers, envelopes, and cards day in and day out you develop a curiosity for these standardized sizes \u2013 what makes them \u201cright\u201d and who decided so! Well the answer starts over 400 years ago across the sea in the Netherlands, where the dutch invented the two-sheet mold for papermaking in the 1660s. Apparently, the average maximum stretch of a vatman’s arms was 44″. In terms of depth, many molds were around 17″ front-to-back because the laid lines and watermarks had to run from left to right. So, to maximize the efficiency of papermaking, the Dutch molded 44\u201d x 17\u201d sheets…which cut down nicely to eight 8.5″ x 11″ pieces of paper. A great size for a hand penned letter!
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\nSkip to the machine age, American president Herbert Hoover\u2019s Elimination of Waste in Industry program created the Committee on the Simplification of Paper Sizes, made up of printing industry reps and the Bureau of Standards. The committee \u00a0stuck with the standard invented by the Dutch in order to help hand-made paper makers stay in business. (The committee actually standardized 17\u201d x 22\u201d as the basis for letter sheets, and 17\u201d x 28\u201d as the basis for \u201clegal\u201d sheets, which yields four annoying 8.5\u201d x 14\u201d sheets that lawyers love to mess us up with.)
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\nWe Canadians however, dared to be different, the Ontario government set the example of switching from Letter to the Metric A4 size, but gave up in the late 1980s at the same time that the Mulroney federal government bailed on metrication, and went back to U.S. Letter. The rupture between what was available and in use outside government was too confusing and expensive to maintain. And so paper remains Imperial for the most part in Canada.
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\nSo, ironically, while the Dutch and the rest of the planet has long since moved on to measuring paper in the very logical metric units and grams per square metre and such, we Canadians find ourselves with our American neighbours, still confusing our clients and our staff with \u201clbs\u201d and \u201cbasis weights\u201d and \u201cM\u2019s\u201d and \u201clegal\u201d and \u201c#10 envelopes\u201d.
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\nI wouldn\u2019t exactly call it genius, but we make it work!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
We\u2019re surrounded by paper on an every day basis, but do you ever wonder why we use 8.5\u201d by 11\u201d as our standard size? I mean it\u2019s a pretty bizarre ratio\u2026.\u00a0 why not something more divisible like 9\u201d by 12\u201d … Continue reading