The Talking Pad — And Why 3x5’s Rule

I will often doo­dle dur­ing meet­ings… not so much “tak­ing notes” as just jot­ting down impor­tant phrases or con­cepts from the dis­cus­sion. Some­times a dia­gram, that sort of thing. This is just one of the rea­sons why when I redesigned my busi­ness cards, I went to to a 3×5 for­mat with the reverse side set up for draw­ing, doo­dling, or note-taking. Seth Godin explains some of the finer points of the why and how this is a good idea.

My Business Card is No Longer Crap

Fol­low­ing my recent busi­ness card post, the redesign and print­ing of my new cards is now com­plete. Here’s what they look like, front and back:
card_front card_back
Click to enlarge, etc. The thing to know — which explains the front of the card — is that they’re not printed on standard-sized busi­ness card stock, but on 150-lb tag, cut to 3“x5”. Index card size. The dot­ted line is actu­ally a per­fo­ra­tion, so a standard-sized busi­ness card can be detached from the index card. When I flip the card over, it’s designed to write on the back, either hor­i­zon­tally or ver­ti­cally. Detach­ing the standard-sized busi­ness card leaves the knight logo aligned in the cor­ner on the back. For good mea­sure (and atten­tion to detail), the heav­ier lines on the grid are exactly ½”.