Vertical Card Discussion (All Banks) šŸ’³

Yep, I was really surprised by how nice it felt and looked when I got it.

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Iā€™m confusedā€¦ whatā€™s the advantage of a vertical card over a horizontal one?

  • Makes marginally more sense for common interactions like inserting, tapping
  • Looks cool
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Whatā€™s the advantage of a horizontal card over a vertical one?

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Thatā€™s a good point, although my argument would be most walletā€™s are designed for horizontal cards. I donā€™t know why cards were/are horizontal to begin with

Perhaps Iā€™m biased; my wallet holds cards in portrait.

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Iā€™m realising itā€™s a circular discussion :joy::rofl:. I wonder if the original horizontal choice was due to it being laid out like a cheque(my guess)

The earliest cards werenā€™t running on an electronic system, the cashier needed to ring up the issuer and read them the number. So for that interaction it makes a more sense.

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Thanks as I was literally discussing this with my other half and we couldnā€™t figure out why the design choice had been around for so long

Iā€™m realising itā€™s a circular discussion

I thought it was a vertical discussion!!

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I was trying to find out more about this myself - and Iā€™ve seen this interesting timeline - but it just kinda seems they ā€œhappenedā€ that way.

Credit Cards started out as ā€œCredit Coinsā€ and ā€œCredit Platesā€, eventually Plastic came in, and the Magnetic Strip in the late 1950s. I would have thought the orientation was related to the magnetic strip / use of that - but it seems they were oriented horizontally before the magnetic strip came about.

Eventually, ISO 7810 came about to standardise ID card sizes, but I canā€™t see when this first happened, and it seems cards followed the ā€œgolden rectangleā€ sizing long before this came about.

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:exploding_head:

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Maybe itā€™s based off charge plates but who knows

IMG_8205

Iā€™ve joined ulster bank and love these card designs

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