Card size--regular or larger?

Hey all! I'm edging closer to the ubiquitious Kickstarter (coming this spring!) for the Brass & Steam tarot, and I figured I'd get some feedback on a popular question: what size card is best, regular or "jumbo"?

Regular, of course, is the 2.75x4.75 standard seen everywhere. I'm seeing print options for decks closer to 4x6, which is tempting, as my cards will have very vivid artwork--the bigger the better!

But, of course, the downside is that the larger decks are more of a pain to shuffle.

What do you folks think?

I think it depends on your artwork. There are some tarots that would really be better if they were larger, because you can't see the details without getting to close quarters (e.g. Shadowscapes, Haindl). I get the point about shuffling, but I do like the look of big cards myself (e.g. Druidcraft, Tarocchi delle Stelle).

Big cards are great for a collector, but hard for a user ( shuffling difficulties) I tend to prefer regular sized or even smaller...rather than larger.

But that's just me.

That's good feedback--thank you! I may go for larger because this will most likely be a "half tarot" (majors + court = 38 cards), so it will probably appeal more to collectors than practitioners (though I hope both enjoy it!).

"Brass and Steam" — does that mean a steampunk?! I love the Moore/Fell one, but that brings up another problem I have, with dark cards that look better on the computer screen than when printed. When I see cards that are too small, or too dark, I always wonder if the artist ever actually printed them out in the intended size and laid them on the table to see how they'll look in use. Professional book illustrators like Colman-Smith and Trevisan probably did, which is why they did better than professional artists like Heindl.

Hey David! it is indeed a steampunk deck--I've been slowly working on it for years, and was sad (but not surprised) that another couple decks beat me to market, heh. However, I feel safe in saying that my deck won't look like any of the others--the genre has plenty of room for individual expression! You can find the deck's homepage on my profile, and can see sample cards etc from there.

You raise an excellent point! I /do/ print the pieces out (to sell as prints online and at conventions to raise money to commission more cards), and there have been one or two that look great on the screen, but are too dark once printed (the Tesla Magician is a prime example of that). So far I've been able to compensate for the most problematic ones with post-production work, but going forward I've made sure the artists draw the pieces nice and bright from now on, heh.

For readers regular are better for sure. I would prefer that.

When I was working on my deck I'd asked the same question - and the overwhelming response was a 'small' deck that would be easy to shuffle. A lot of people had arthritis, or small hands, or general issues with shuffling a very large deck. I stuck with doing mine at the standard size.

Yeah, I've gotten that feedback as well. Finding the balance between "show off the art" and "easy to use" is tougher than I thought it would be!

I will always choose big over little.