Hex Business Card Holder Tiles

A new office and a new excuse to design and 3D print something! Like many people I end up with piles of business cards that I don’t know what to do with. They clutter my desk, get lost, and ultimately end up in the bin. Sure, there are loads of fancy solutions at stationery stores, and plenty of apps to digitise them, but where’s the fun in that?

Now that I have pinboards wrapping my desk I decided to design a simple, easy to 3D print hexagon business card holder that could be pinned up out of the way. After all, everyone loves hexagons right? While the design is extremely simple (a few extrudes and cuts in Fusion 360), the trick was to model it in a way that would allow it to be 3D printed without any support material – so, as you can see from the layers in the photos, they are (perhaps counter-intuitively) printed in the same orientation they are used. This was an important thing to consider during the design process, with no horizontal beams and all angles >30° from horizontal, and is an important part of what’s known as Design for Additive Manufacturing (DfAM).

There is a small hole and recess to fit a thumb tack, and you can 3D print as many as you need. As usual you can freely download and print this design for yourself from Thingiverse, Pinshape, MyMiniFactory or Cults, and I’d love to see photos of how big you can make your Hex Business Card wall!

Happy printing 🙂

– Posted by James Novak