User Experiences of Tarot Card Design

Laura Borealis

I'm sure many deck creators would prefer people didn't trim. They may have put a lot of thought into the back and borders. If it satisfies their aesthetics there's no reason they should have to cater to the wishes of the minority who trim.

On the other hand there have been more borderless decks in the last few years, sometimes in direct response to user demand.

If I published a deck I'd consider doing a full bleed just to stop people from hacking up my art. ;)
 

G6

If I published a deck I'd consider doing a full bleed just to stop people from hacking up my art. ;)

This is good advice! I would recommend this too because then if the card size is just not right for me there is nothing for me to do except sell/trade it along.
 

G6

In Robin Woods' book "Robin Wood Tarot: The Book", she talks about her publisher rejecting a back design after they changed the size of the card by 1/16 inch.

If things need to be redesigned every time the card size changes by a barely perceptible amount, I'm not sure there's any good way to design them to be unaffected by user modification. How many ways could a user trim them? And how many different designed would you have to layer on top of each other to make that possible?

Think wallpaper, like smaller repeating icons where it wouldn't matter how much you hack. Another obvious choice is solid backs with only a smaller icon or design element in the middle of the card.
 

Morwenna

It wouldn't be a trimming issue for me, but the idea of a solid back or a barely-bordered back with a single design element (reversible) in the center is a nice elegant one, which I would prefer to most of the thematic back designs out there.
 

Laura Borealis

*nods* I know people rag on plaid backs but there is something to be said for a simple repeating design.
 

G6

Modification - Card Back Examples

Card back examples that would work with modification...

Somehow these types are less distracting in general, don't you think?
 

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Barleywine

It wouldn't be a trimming issue for me, but the idea of a solid back or a barely-bordered back with a single design element (reversible) in the center is a nice elegant one, which I would prefer to most of the thematic back designs out there.

The solid white back with central gold Sun symbol of the Albano-Waite comes close to this, but they aren't reversible. They're among my favorite back designs.
 

bonebeach

I think that publishers do consider the user experience, but if it's anything like publishing books...

No one really cares about any one individual's experience, or even that of a few individuals, because the scale that you have to work in to turn a profit is very large. The idea is to make a product with the widest possible appeal. Publishing is such an arduous process--the post about the Robin Wood and the card backs getting rejected after a tiny size modification makes perfect sense to me. I imagine there's a lot of things like that.

I think the mass appeal thing is probably we got to those LoS decks with four languages crammed onto each card. Which now they are moving away from, it seems, after enough (a lot) of people have complained.

If I were making a deck, I would probably also go full bleed to stop people from hacking up my vision. ;)
 

G6

I think that publishers do consider the user experience, but if it's anything like publishing books...

No one really cares about any one individual's experience, or even that of a few individuals, because the scale that you have to work in to turn a profit is very large. The idea is to make a product with the widest possible appeal. Publishing is such an arduous process--the post about the Robin Wood and the card backs getting rejected after a tiny size modification makes perfect sense to me. I imagine there's a lot of things like that.

I think the mass appeal thing is probably we got to those LoS decks with four languages crammed onto each card. Which now they are moving away from, it seems, after enough (a lot) of people have complained.

If I were making a deck, I would probably also go full bleed to stop people from hacking up my vision. ;)

In my opinion, LoScar does a good job with size of card and image size/minimal border. I don't even mind the multi-language titles of the earlier decks. In contrast, Ludy Lescot has symbols and numbers, which is better, but someone new to tarot would have a hard time decoding. However, because many LoScar decks are not RWS, but more narrative/intuitive type decks I don't think labeling cards is as important.

Deck makers and publishers should care about our experiences because if we don't want to use a deck that impacts their sales. For example, my method of shuffling is how I pull cards. I don't fan a deck across a twelve foot table and pull cards. I also don't have a vision impairment. In my case, oversized cards are of no use to me.
Also, unless they are very small, cards that are more square don't fit in the hand properly for shuffling.

Decks are not just about looks. Usability is a huge factor.

Deviant Moon borderless edition is right on the edge of going about as big as you can get away with. What saves that deck is that it's narrow enough to cradle in the hand. If I had my say, I would reduce the length a bit.
 

Morwenna

Card back examples that would work with modification...

Somehow these types are less distracting in general, don't you think?

Two of those I recognize, and I like them all. :)