Which deck has your favourite and least favourite back design/colour ets and why???

My least favourite is the Sharman-Caselli deck because of the choice of colour and its brightness just hurts my eyes. I also do not like back designs that have numbers, wierd shapes on them or too busy (too much is going on) such as Phantasmagoric Theatre, Sweet Twilight,...

My favourite designs include decks such as CBD Marseille, Ancient Italian, Fournier Marseille, Touchstone, Golden Tarot (Kat Black), Sheridan Douglas, I also like Ciro Marchetti's back designs and celtic designs too such as the Robin Wood

I prefer reversible card backs with neutral or soothing colours such as blues, light browns, green. Do not like strong colours on card backs cos I find them distracting and sometimes even disturbing. I do like to see a cross or a similar mainstream symbols on them such as Thoth, Pictorial Key Tarot,

So now which deck has your favourite and least favourite back design???..and why???

Love: vivid colors with strong, simple, singular symbols or embellishments.

- e.g. the Russian edition of the Buckland Romani (dark purple with a metallic gold wheel in the center).
- e.g. the Pamela Colman Smith commemorative RWS (cool mint with a central round symbol and Colman Smith's stylized signature in the corners)
- e.g. Rumi Tarot (warm greener mint with medallion-like Islamic design in center)

Like: patterns that are not too byzantine

e.g. first edition Buckland Romani( the Romani flag with wheel in center against a pattern of color blocks

e.g. Tarot of Fire (stylized orange flames cresting at each end of the card)

Tolerate : patterns that are more visually dense but still give a strong impression of color and form [/b]

e.g. aforementioned Robin Wood celtic weavework pattern
e.g. Crystal Tarot (Trevisan): byzantine, blue peacock-against-white, sort of toile-like pattern

Deplore : the aforementioned Lo Scarabeo curse--which thankfully seems to be lifting of late-- of muddled, busy, amorphous, can't-make-heads-nor-tails out of it, this-is-a-shadowy-reprinting-of-one-of the card-scenes back designs.

e.g. don't have most of them to hand at the moment, so no examples yet pending further research (I do hate the Sweet Twilight back despite its bolder than normal colors for LS backs). But rest assured: they exist, and I deplore them. They cast a pall over the whole reading experience.

My favourite backs are either repeating pattern motifs that are pleasing to look at, or mirrored stylized images. They need to 'match' the style of the deck.

I HATE when decks either put the name of the deck on the back of every card, or put the image from one particular card on the backs of all of them. I also don't like when the backs don't match the cards at all in terms of style or colour-scheme.

Here are my favourites:

Egorov - those gold peacocks are simple and sophisticated

USgames Wirth - if happiness had a colour, it would be that exact shade of yellow!

Paulina- beautiful, delicate, whimsical birds and flowers. The deck is so busy, and the simple backs really balance things out.

Housewives- like a picnic tablecloth! Suits the mood of the deck and doesn't distract.

Dragon- pleasing to the eye, and matching the deck well.

Aquarian- retro psychadelic squigglies!!!!! What's not to love?

Vetrate- Circles of clear glass like a window. Pretty.

Hoi Polloi- I love keys. I wish there was a Tarot with a back motif of repeating keys arranged in a pretty pattern.

Rasa said:

Aquarian- retro psychadelic squigglies!!!!! What's not to love?

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You know, I saw a youtube video the other day and it featured the Aquarian and I noticed that the Aquarian had a white border on the back! I also noticed the deck was very shiny so wondered if the "printed in Italy" decks in fact have a white border. I have a few Morgan Press and older US games copies, none of which have a border on the back. I'm not a huge fan of this back to be honest, it's too weirdly assymetrical. But I've seen worse.

I can't stand the back of the Lo Scarabeo Classical Tarot; duplicated Star card in sepia. Thankfully, I think they've stopped doing these backs, but the damage is done on this deck...

I like the unintrusive wallpaper-type backs; Oswald Wirth, Flornoy, Vieville. Just something discreet and repeated.

Hmm. Can't decide on best back, but my least fave on a deck that I own - have owned(Need another copy) - Sharman-Caselli and its tacky tacky bright pink.

Because I very much dislike pink anything.

I LOVE the Sweet Twilight backs. Every time I see them, I feel as though there is a gathering of spirits overseeing my reading. My favorite back design ever.
I HATE the Pierpont Morgan Visconti backs. They are a brownish shade of burgundy and look like paint sample cards from the hardware store. Why couldn't these backs be gold?
I have a RWS with tarotee backs and they are so ugly that I don't want to turn the cards face down. Fine for a poker deck. Hideous for a divination deck.

Most favorite - not just one deck. I love decks with starry backs - I think the Universal RWS, and then there is one I really like that has a spiral of stars, can't remember offhand what it is.
Those are my favorite.

Least favorite - I have a few collector decks with plain white backs. While there is nothing WRONG with that, I just don't like that, even though I understand the why of it.

The Norse tarot on the left and Tarot of the Dead on the right for favorite backs. I don't really have any ones that I dislike completely.

I love the Magic Realist Press deck backs. I love how they are similar and match, yet are different. I do not have every edition of every deck, but I have a lot of them ... my favorite of the ones that match is the Baroque Bohemian Cats Gold.

The Bohemian Gothic backs with the skull design are wonderful. The backs match the theme of the deck, plus it stands alone as a wonderful graphic.

The Steampunk Tarot by Barbara Moore and Aly Fell has wonderful backs. Again same as above: the backs match the theme of the deck, both in color and design, plus stands alone as a wonderful graphic.

The Circle of Life and the Heart tarot backs are very nice. The Circle of Life ... I love the sunshiney-ness of it. The Heart tarot ... it's such a special deck to begin with, an emotional deck, and the backs reflect this with the wonderful artwork.

If I have to pick one I don't connect quite as well with, it would be the Gill tarot backs. They aren't reversible and they are pretty busy with the Tree of Life artwork. But I'm reaching here, as I really am okay with them.

I don't like the Lisa Hunt deck backs and I hate the Robin Wood deck backs. Those two come to mind, but there are one or two more I can't remember right now.

I'll come back and mention my favorites tomorrow.