Minimalist decks?

I've noticed that more and more these days, there seems to be a trend in indie Tarot decks towards minimalist design and imagery.

The Mesquite Tarot was the latest to catch my attention:

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1661022957/mesquite-tarot

The Mystic Mondays deck is another example:

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/graceduong/mystic-mondays-tarot-cards

There's also the Dark Exact ...

https://www.etsy.com/listing/263531492/the-dark-exact-tarot-deck

... and the Golden Thread ...

https://www.etsy.com/listing/267035991/golden-thread-tarot-deck-tarot-cards

... and several others, both recently published and currently being funded, which make the Wild Unknown (which in my opinion jump started the contemporary minimalist Tarot trend a couple of years ago) look positively baroque by comparison.

The creators of all of these seem to have in common a desire to somehow reduce imagery to the "essence" of each individual card, and/or to make the process of reading Tarot simpler, clearer, and more intuitive.

From a design perspective, I do find many of these decks quite striking. And since I'm all for making Tarot as accessible to as wide an audience as possible, I appreciate the fact that decks like these aren't as intimidating to neophyte readers as much as a traditional Rider Waite or (obviously!) a Thoth deck might be.

But as someone who has always been drawn to Tarot precisely for its wealth of symbolism and associations, I have to say that many of these decks leave me cold. I can't help thinking that much of the nuance, subtlety, and true essence of the medium is lost when Tarot imagery is pared down so starkly.

To those who are fans of minimalist decks, may I ask why you prefer them to more "traditional" or more fully detailed ones? Do you feel you get the same depth from a reading with a minimalist deck as you do from a more traditional deck (assuming you have experience with both)? And of the current crop of minimalist Tarot decks, which one is your favorite?

I think for me, and for most other people, it just comes down to style. To quote a friend, minimalism is cooool.

When I first got into Tarot and I was looking through decks on AT, I didn't find very many I liked because the main aesthetic was somewhere between Medieval, Renaissance, and Victorian. Nothing wrong with those styles, but I was 17 and wanted something that felt more relevant to me. When the first crop of minimalist decks came out, they felt both modern and yet timeless. They had a style I actually enjoyed. Of course, that concept of bringing a tarot card to its essence was also very helpful to a beginner as well.

These days I don't go for the newer crop of minimalist decks, mostly because they don't fit my style anymore! But I do still look at (most of) them and get inuititive flashes. I think for some people, a little can go a long way in a reading. It won't work for everyone, but that's a feature of greater deck diversity and not so much a setback. There's truly a deck (or 5 or 10) out there for everyone.

Of the newer minimalist decks, I like the Wanderer's Tarot and the Personal Tarot. They have minimalist styles, but Wanderer has a lot of symbolism in the details, and Personal Tarot feels so, well, personal in its deceptions!

(Not sure if decks like Divina/Spirit Speak and Dark Days Tarot count, they feel more second-wave minimalist deck to me... No color or scenes but lots of details and objects in the frame.)

Being a perennial skeptic and sometime curmudgeon, my first thought is that it's an attempt to cash in on tarot's resurgent popularity without having to develop a full arsenal of artistic and symbolic competencies. Obviously, some of the decks fall further into this camp while others exhibit skills of one sort or another: color mastery, reliable composition, etc. The Mystic Mondays deck seems to hit the first mark, while the Golden Thread the second one (with the Dark Exact a distant second), and the Golden Thread seems to be stronger in depth of symbolism. I'm not a fan of b&W or monochromatic decks in general, but the Golden Thread is the only one here I would consider backing. It's interesting that my taste for Lenormand minimalism runs quite contrary to my taste in tarot. Maybe I just haven't met the right deck yet.

I personally like minimalist decks because they give me lots of interpretive wiggle room. RWS feels very stiff and unyielding to me, and then a lot of its close clones just feel like they're trying to soften that stiffness with a more realistic style. Plus, I'm just really not into the Arthurian/Victorian/Baroque/Romantic/whatever style that is pretty common. Nor am I really one for the 'cave painting' or 'co-opted ancient native artwork' decks, they make me uncomfortable. My 'busiest' decks are the Tabula Mundi Nox et Lux and the Tarot of Prague, and I have days where I struggle with the Nox et Lux.

As far as accessibility goes, I would argue that a lot of the minimalist decks are, in ways, less accessible to someone who isn't versed in basic card meanings, because some of them are too abstract. Great for intuition, I guess, but I like a mix.

The tl;dr of it is that I guess I want decks that leave room for me to have something to say, that feel like each card is flexible in different contexts and adaptable in shade of meaning, and that's not something I personally find in either super traditional decks or extremely lush and busy ones. We all have our different kinds of pickiness.

Don't forget these not-so-new but also minimalistic and fabulous decks :

International Icon and David's Tarot

Barleywine said:

and the Golden Thread seems to be stronger in depth of symbolism. I'm not a fan of b&W or monochromatic decks in general, but the Golden Thread is the only one here I would consider backing.

Click to expand...

The Golden Thread is LOVELY. (I have it.) The facial expressions are priceless.

gregory said:

The Golden Thread is LOVELY. (I have it.) The facial expressions are priceless.

Click to expand...

Please don't ENABLE me

*hides*

Except for my dark/gothic decks, I've always been drawn to the bold, brilliant, and vibrant, so minimalistic decks never really did anything for me. But I've had a hankering for the Linestrider ever since I first saw it, and I just recently ordered it. I hope it maintains its hold on me once it gets here.

I like a bit of everything, from the Thoth to the Golden Thread, and I think what draws me to some minimalist decks is that they speak to the designer inside of me. The Golden Thread for example, which I have and love, to me has a real value in terms of composition; a lot of decks out there don't appeal to me personally because the art seems poorly drawn, or too crowded with symbols just for the sake of having as many of them as possible in one single card. The beauty of tarot is that there is indeed something for everybody, or for every period of life, every facet of human experience, and in that sense minimalist decks definitely have a place and lessons to share with the rest of us.

I personally find that minimalist decks have a short shelf life. They are always exquisite in theory. I'm not asking for a Hermetic-runic-cabbalistic overload. Far from it. I find that minimalistic decks are immediately very appealing - they seem fresh and clean-slate-like but in practice, there are no layers.

Of course one can sort of scry into the blank spaces, but you can probably do that with a white bathroom tile or whitewashed wall.

It's true, there are a lot of them right now. The trend will pass. A part of all those things I thought I liked, such as imagery with bones and lone feathers and quartz crystals and empty space. I look at decks as and when they come out and you can't really lump them all together but as a general style, I can read with them for about half a dozen times and then they seem flat and I crave more details to chew on.