BE GONE, WHITE BORDERS! DECK PUBLISHERS...ARE YOU LISTENING?

[greatdane]

Yes, I know many of us have our complaints about various aspects of various decks. But for me, the one I will NEVER understand....WHITE BORDERS....

I picked up a Tarot for Cats, brand new, with the book, for a pittance. MUCH less than it originally sold new even though it is now oop (HELLLO AMAZON vendors!).

The cards are mammoth. And to make it even bigger, let's add white borders. While the borders are thin, just not having them, having this be borderless, would make it easier to shuffle.

Not like I will use this a lot (I got because I love the artwork, and sometimes for a certain crowd, really non-scary majors can work best), but still. It's NICE to be able to shuffle without feeling like I need an extra person....

I HOPE deck publishers read this. There are SO few decks I see BENEFIT from white borders. Trying to think of one....nope, can't. Some decks I still love even THOUGH they have white borders, but do I feel they benefit from them? UH, no, nyet, non.

Can anyone think of a deck that really is helped, aesthetically, by white borders other than an all white background deck (which, then, technically, has no borders).

 

[Le Fanu]

I was looking at some decks last night - my Deviant Moon, bordered versus borderless - and thinking why it is that borderlessness really is the way forward (and looking closely at my Deviant Moon and realising that it actually has three borders, one inside the other, only one of which is white). No wonder it looks cramped. And I reflected on how it really is very old school to think that everything benefits from borders.

And I think of iPads and screens and how used we are now to things being big and up close and that perhaps our visual tastes have changed and that borderlessness is more tied in with our contemporary vision. When we look at things on the screen our mind cuts out the borders or frames and this might be spilling over into how we look at cards. I ramble a little but I know what I mean.

Then you look at all those recent borderless decks - Victorian Fairy, Hidden Realms, now Deviant Moon. Can anyone come forward and say that - no - the decks would look better with borders.

I honestly think that something has changed in how we look at things - and I do associate it with screens and the ability of the human eye to now edit out screen frames and it is this that we now want in tarot cards.

 

[greatdane]

I would agree totally, Le Fanu, except for one tiny thing

I don't use small gadgets. This Crone is old school. I have always liked things not cramped looking. Nothing superfluous. I see nothing adding a white border helps. Now, there are some decks with very minimal borders I like. The Anna. K second edition I have. But they also aren't WHITE borders. It's why WHITE borders that are usually on the OUTSIDE of yet another border, so maybe a background on a deck is mostly, let's say, blue, then there is a thin purple border, then this white border. It's not like it's framing it in a lovely way.

So I DO agree, that perhaps some tastes have changed, but I've always liked things simple and more just...there. I can handle some borders, even think they may enhance like a frame, but white borders? And they just increase the size and if a deck is already large, makes it even more difficult to shuffle and for what? So it can have this lovely white border?

BLAH, BE GONE!

 

[Dee Ell]

YES TO *NO* BORDERS!!

What I find even worse than adding a border to an already large deck (which - admittedly, albeit annoying - can be trimmed) is when small to medium sized decks add a (large) border (a la Crystal Tarots and others), thus unnecessarily reducing the gorgeous artwork down to a miniscule size.

All that hard work of the artist already reduced to a normal card size is a lot, but then adding borders and decorative elements, etc (a la Maroon) and I just can't understand why they do it!

I find very few decks actually look nice with their decorative border (like the new Mucha deck - and thus necessary white border surrounding it, because they're not rectangular) because it is *part of the art*... but just adding a border to add a border is really annoying. I would much prefer most decks I've seen to be borderless.

And yes, I understand what you're saying Le Fanu and technology may have affected people's tastes, but I also agree with GreatDane that personally I've always preferred a simpler and cleaner look.

(I worked some years in picture framing shops to get discounts on framing my own art and you can see these tendencies there too: people choosing double and triple matts with different colors (often colors not even in the art); frames that completely distract from the artwork being framed, etc, etc...)

 

[Nemia]

I try to think of reasons pro-white borders. If the art for the cards is not precisely the same size and proportion, putting them into borders might balance them out. Why white though? Probably cheapest. The paper is white anyway.

I like the Morgan Greer. It's borderlessness is one of its most appealing features. It really just sucks you in. It extends a hand to you.

I have trimmed by now most of my decks. I'm in no temptation to trim coloured borders - the Golden, Touchstone, Housewive, Shadowscapes, Anna K. ... all their borders do not disturb me in the least. They are colorful and harmonize with the content of the card or may indicate the suit. That's fine.

But white borders? They always remind me of overgrown cuticles... just not nice.

 

[Dee Ell]

I try to think of reasons pro-white borders. If the art for the cards is not precisely the same size and proportion, putting them into borders might balance them out. Why white though? Probably cheapest. The paper is white anyway.

I see this as laziness on two fronts: yes, it's the color of the paper, but also, if someone is designing a tarot deck, the art *should* be the same size/proportion (in my opinion)! If they're just curating random pre-existing art for a deck then obviously it won't all be the same proportion so why are they forcing it into a tarot deck without doing the extra bit of work to harmonize it? (money is my guess - much easier just to cut and paste something on a card-shaped template than have to actually *do* anything with it)
anyway...

But white borders? They always remind me of overgrown cuticles... just not nice.

hahahaha

 

[agviz]

The Crystal Tarot is indeed a perfect example of lovely artwork greatly diminished by huge borders. I followed Le Fanu's lead and trimmed mine. Wow, they look so much better.

Borders can be nice sometimes, but so often they come close to ruining the deck.

Here's what's wrong (imho). Deck manufactures think of the artwork as needing a border to frame it, and so the art stops where the border begins... as opposed to seeing the entire card as a work of art. And so we get a layout "artist" proudly adding their stamp (a big white border with a dull font and a copyright) and diluting the original artwork. If on the other hand, the borders have an aesthetic that matches the artwork (making them part of the art), it could work really well. Often that's not the case.

 

[Dee Ell]

The Crystal Tarot is indeed a perfect example of lovely artwork greatly diminished by huge borders. I followed Le Fanu's lead and trimmed mine. Wow, they look so much better.

Borders can be nice sometimes, but so often they come close to ruining the deck.

Here's what's wrong (imho). Deck manufactures think of the artwork as needing a border to frame it, and so the art stops where the border begins... as opposed to seeing the entire card as a work of art. And so we get a layout "artist" proudly adding their stamp (a big white border with a dull font and a copyright) and diluting the original artwork. If on the other hand, the borders have an aesthetic that matches the artwork (making them part of the art), it could work really well. Often that's not the case.

Yes to all of this -- I remember your gorgeous example of your trimmed Crystal and it's both stunning and sad to me at the same time because the cards become so small when trimmed and the art could easily be much bigger (I've emailed Lo Scarabeo several times about reprinting this deck without those borders! )

And your comment about the borders becoming part of the art is exactly what I was talking about above when I mentioned the Mucha Tarot. Granted, the outer border could probably be a bit smaller, but it needs to be there to accommodate the lovely, undulating art nouveau border. You can see some of the cards from the deck here: http://www.loscarabeo.com/lang-en/tarocchi-artistici/632-mucha-tarot.html
(the last card on there is the back, which I think was a silly choice to include another human figure on the card backs, but they didn't listen to the multitudes of people voicing that opinion when they were asking for it prior to publishing the deck!)

 

[HearthCricket]

I was looking at some decks last night - my Deviant Moon, bordered versus borderless - and thinking why it is that borderlessness really is the way forward (and looking closely at my Deviant Moon and realising that it actually has three borders, one inside the other, only one of which is white). No wonder it looks cramped. And I reflected on how it really is very old school to think that everything benefits from borders.

And I think of iPads and screens and how used we are now to things being big and up close and that perhaps our visual tastes have changed and that borderlessness is more tied in with our contemporary vision. When we look at things on the screen our mind cuts out the borders or frames and this might be spilling over into how we look at cards. I ramble a little but I know what I mean.

Then you look at all those recent borderless decks - Victorian Fairy, Hidden Realms, now Deviant Moon. Can anyone come forward and say that - no - the decks would look better with borders.

I honestly think that something has changed in how we look at things - and I do associate it with screens and the ability of the human eye to now edit out screen frames and it is this that we now want in tarot cards.

I completely agree and understand what you are saying. With my iPhone or iPad I can see things in HD (just like our movies and shows....sharp as a pin) but also I can expand them to see the details or just fill out the entire screen with the artwork, with or without the meanings, and cut off the borders so as to let the artwork spill outwards. I do this with photos, tarot apps, instagram, etc. But it goes a step further, I think. Look at modern art. Painted on a blocked piece of canvas, but no frames and sold that way, hung that way. In home and gallery. Gone are the thick, gold, ornate and heavy frames used throughout the many centuries past. If you go into a home decor store it is often very hard to find framed prints or artwork now. Everything is borderless! So yes, we are being trained to "see" in a different, almost purer, way. And the result in tarot (and other artistic endeavors) is powerful. The cropping tool at its very best. Crop out the unwanted and keep the best!

 

[greatdane]

I'm agreeing with everyone

And please keep in mind I am specifically talking about the white borders just added at the edge of everything else (although other borders can be annoying as well).

I just wonder who went, you know, aesthetically, this looks SO much better with a white border....

I think perhaps some thought white borders would be like guard rails. That if there was a colored background, you could see wear after awhile, but if you put in white borders....
But frankly, I'll take my chances with a deck showing wear.