Small versus Big Cards

Hi everyone!

I just want to share something that has been frustrating me lately!

There are numerous decks that I have been looking at online and that I wanted to purchase. That is until I went to a store and got to see the size. They are such small cards, tiny tiny illustrations! I know there are readers here who are much older than myself and read with these decks, but for me it really hurts my eyes to have to look at such tiny illustrations! For example, I really wanted to get the Legacy of the Divine until I saw the size of the cards. I'm disappointed

I like my cards big ! The bigger the better is my personal preference. Some decks that have smaller cards (like that Tarot of Prague) are ok just because the image takes up most of the card. But some of the decks I looked at today have big borders and big writing and then the image itself is ridiculously small.

Anyway, that is just my personal preference. I can meditate on the images better if I can actually see something.

So, what is your preference and why?

due to my recent trimming habits now i have decks in all kinda of sizes due to trimming them by different amounts + natural variations...

i prefer small, honestly. like steampunk is my biggest deck, even after trimming it, and though i do like it, i find the size a bit annoying still. druidcraft i'm trimming now and just...i like each card so much more after its trim, in part due to reduced size. my sun and moon i think is my smallest now after trimming, and i love its size.

then again, im also in the minority for example, that has no problem with the shadowscapes size. i don't find smaller deck sizes a strain at all.

well, within reason. i wouldn't get a mini deck and even though i loved the art when i bought 8 bit tarot for a friend, i never bought one for me because of the size. not that i cant see, more like when its THAT small, shuffling becomes a pain.

but yeah, within reason, i'd take smaller over bigger personally :]

Cassandra022 said:

due to my recent trimming habits now i have decks in all kinda of sizes due to trimming them by different amounts + natural variations...

i prefer small, honestly. like steampunk is my biggest deck, even after trimming it, and though i do like it, i find the size a bit annoying still. druidcraft i'm trimming now and just...i like each card so much more after its trim, in part due to reduced size. my sun and moon i think is my smallest now after trimming, and i love its size.

then again, im also in the minority for example, that has no problem with the shadowscapes size. i don't find smaller deck sizes a strain at all.

well, within reason. i wouldn't get a mini deck and even though i loved the art when i bought 8 bit tarot for a friend, i never bought one for me because of the size. not that i cant see, more like when its THAT small, shuffling becomes a pain.

but yeah, within reason, i'd take smaller over bigger personally :]

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Thank you for sharing
I wish I could appreciate small more then I could read anywhere. Shuffling does get hard with big cards but I find the end result worth it, lol

Even though I can comfortably shuffle decks like the Large Thoth, the Rohrig, the Druid Craft, I like a deck to feel compact in the hand. There's a size that just feels right and, considering the size of my hands, it is actually quite small. I like the mid-sized Thoth size, the Navigators of the Mystic SEA, the standard RWS, LoS size.

Oh but this weird insistance on large borders in decks. I like the buffering element in a deck; that if you have a border it prevents wear and tear going into the card image, but, seriously, 3 mm is fine at most. Anything else really off-sets the graphic effect of the card. Especially when it is that glaring white.

But there's no point us whining because publishers will go on putting bright white borders on them and using up the space. It would be so lovely to have cards a bit bigger than your average playing card (just a little) and very, very minimal borders, with the image filling all but 2 m.m. Even my oldest, most used decks have never worn out that much border

cutiecutie said:

I like my cards big ! The bigger the better is my personal preference. Some decks that have smaller cards (like that Tarot of Prague) are ok just because the image takes up most of the card. But some of the decks I looked at today have big borders and big writing and then the image itself is ridiculously small.

Anyway, that is just my personal preference. I can meditate on the images better if I can actually see something.

So, what is your preference and why?

Click to expand...

I also prefer big cards but I would consider the Tarot of Prague big compared to some other decks like Legacy of the Divine or Shadowscapes. I also prefer borderless over cards with borders as I want my images as large as possible. I think MRP size is great, I'm always disappointed with cards that are smaller with a few exceptions: the Nova Tarot is pocket-sized but since the images are minimalist the size works great. So it also depends how the images relate to the card size.

I have to admit even though I have tiny hands I prefer larger decks where we can see the art better. But then like Le Fanu said, I'd rather see average decks with small borders than small/average decks with big borders, that could allow us to see better the art and have decks easier to shuffle. There is one deck that suffers from this, the Maroon Tarot, a small/average deck with gigantic borders that take 1/3 of the cards and leave a tiny space for the images and leaves me desperate at trying to guess what is happening on the cards. It's quite unfortunate because the cards are beautiful but you need to scan them and see them in high resolution to appreciate them, especially that some cards are quite dark and hard to see. I ended up not using it because of this, I cannot see anything. There is one deck I like much better without its border is the second edition of the Baroque Bohemian Cats' Tarot. When I saw the first edition I didn't like it but when I bought the second edition I really like it, and I realized it was that gigantic borders taking space. Both decks have the same size but with the borders gone the images are bigger and we get to better the details. In other words, I'd love to see more decks like that second edition with minimal borders that allow us to see better the images. I like the black minimal borders of the Tarot of Vampyres.

Whatever size best suits the artwork is what I like. The Victoria Regina would be so slighted if it were small, for example. For reading, I prefer cards small enough that shuffling isn't a major production. The standard Rider deck or smaller is just about right.

Le Fanu, from what I understand, cards are most often cut from the larger printed sheet with expensive custom-made metal dies. Standardizing card sizes lessens the cost and also may have some design advantages from the point of view of brand identity (for example, if most Lo Scarabeo decks are a standard size--the "LS size," so to speak). Also artists may not plan for titles and numbers, and artwork gets stretched or compressed to accommodate the card format. Weird proportions within a standard size are less noticeable with large borders.

Black borders are almost always a mistake, I think.

I absolutely do not see any point whatsoever in those big cards, like the untrimmed Druidcraft, Maat *spits on ground* or the LE Tarot of Dreams, to name three at random. If you want cards, get cards. And cards are CARD SIZED. If you want pretty pictures, then buy pretty pictures and hang them on the wall. Me, I prefer LS sized to pocket size (the size of playing cards). Because cards are to be used, and I prefer to use them.

jackdaw* said:

I absolutely do not see any point whatsoever in those big cards, like the untrimmed Druidcraft, Maat *spits on ground* or the LE Tarot of Dreams, to name three at random. If you want cards, get cards. And cards are CARD SIZED. If you want pretty pictures, then buy pretty pictures and hang them on the wall. Me, I prefer LS sized to pocket size (the size of playing cards). Because cards are to be used, and I prefer to use them.

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I feel the same.

my choice is larger but if the borders make a fair percentage of that, where possible I get rid of them