PRINTING your own deck...uniform size and appearance ques

Those of you who have created and/or self-published your own decks: can you offer some info on the printing part of it? With color copies being so available these days, and on a wide range of papers (I would obviously go with heavy card stock), I wonder what kind of success people have had, appearance wise. Also, from what I understand, major players like US Games print the cards on large sheets and then machines cut them to size. How could I make this work with copies????? I just want the
deck(s) to be perfectly uniform in size.

templates and cutting

Hi

If you try www.cartamundi.com they would be able to do this for you and give you an estimate. I used to work for a printing/ Publishers and that's the cheapest way to do it instead of doing it yourself unless you only want to make one deck of cards instead of 1000.

I'm just starting to design my own cards but I got a lot of info first from the publishers. Have you gone to there websites?

Anyway good luck it will be worth it in the end!

Funky

Wow, I wasn't really thinking about 1000 decks!!!! I assume the larger the quantity printed, the better the price. But 1000! LOL! I was thinking that I would read with my own initial deck and then if any of my clients were interested, they could purchase a deck.

The process of creating the deck alone is intense, time-consuming and rewarding. I haven't yet considered who I will get to do the artwork. And now you're talking about 1000 decks! I can't even think of being at that point right now!

I need suggestions from those of you who have printed your own deck... I'm thinking a blade cutter is the way to go with the actual card cutting. But they might be imperfect. But I guess that's ok for what I'm considering.

Thanks, Funky! If and when I do get to the point where I want to self pub that many, I will contact Carta Mundi.

btw,

carta mundi is one of the best card press houses. they do all sorts of tarot decks and i heard about them thru having played the Magic: the Gathering card game as they were Wizards of the Coast's (role playing game company) main supplier.

blessed be,
.dc

Hummingbird:

I just did one copy of my deck on my home printer. After scanning all the cards and the card back, I made sure all the images were exactly the same size. Then I ran heavy-guage, shiny-surface card stock, printing each card, giving it a few seconds to dry, then turning it over and running the card back on the reverse side.

The images centered perfectly, so it worked out well. The cards are playing-card size, and I didn't try to get fancy with multiple images. I just did one card on each 8-1/2 x 11 sheet and cut them out with scissors. Needless to say, let the ink dry completely before you do the cutting. Even with an ink jet printer, the colors should be fast within a few minutes.

I ended up with exactly what I wanted -- a single, serviceable deck of my own cards.

You could also try cutting out your cards with a craft knife and a straight edge, like a metal ruler. It would take some time, I know I've done it lol, but at the end you would have a deck that was nearly perfect and even if it wasn't perfect, you'd still have the satisfaction of using your own deck and you'll have gained experience Sometimes decks are not as even as you'd think, I own one that when I place the cards together you can tell they've not been cut out straight but it doesn't bother me.

mundi

Hi

I would still recommend going to a printers as they might even have some leftover card from an old job that you can use. It's worth getting touch as some small family run printers only do 100's and not 1000's. Also printers not only print they could just do the cutting for you.

To be honest I'm in the same boat as you and I wouldn't even dream of doing it myself as the printers can do all the job in less than half a day!! It just saves time.

Good luck and I would like also to hear from those who has had ther cards printed and published.

Hey I just spoke to mundi today and they will send me out some templates.
You should contact them, they are sooooooooo cool!

Funky

Thanks to all for the ideas. I think I will start out with my own homemade one-of-a-kind deck. If I get positive response, I might consider having some printed. For now, though, printing the front and back on my printer and cutting with a paper trimmer sounds feasible. I hadn't even thought about the backs before!!!

Has anyone else out there done it?

Time??

Hi Hummingbird,

Just wanted to know if you have finished desiging your cards,if so how long it it take??

Funky

Good luck with the printing!!

Printers

I'm also looking to print out a deck of cards I designed. The 1000's are too many, but I am interested in printing out at least 100.

Small printers were mentioned awhile back... I've been searching on the web for them, but I can't seem to find anyone that would print a deck of cards.

Can anyone help out? Some company names would be great, but even a few keywords I may have been missing from my web search would be great too

Thanks!

Spacemonkey