Do The Titles Bug You?

[3ill.yazi]

This might fall under the "what one flaw ruins a deck for you" thread, but I thought it was specific enough to pull out on its own, because it has less to do with the card images.

I'm a font geek, a word nerd, and often an otherwise wonderful deck will look ghastly to me because of the font/lettering choice for the card titles.

I think the images on the Morgan Greer are compelling in a bold 70s way, but the titles seem so slapped-on and much more dated. I love to Haindl deck, but the versions I've seen reduce the whole image to put in a very bland title.

The Robin Wood deck I also find compelling, but it and similar decks have this kinda-Tolkien, sorta trying to be medieval font that is distracting. I swear I've even sen the dreaded Papyrus font on a deck.

I'm less wound up about the RWS sans PCS hand lettering issue, as I don't find the simple Times New Roman-ish font that USG uses to be easy to read. Though I prefer to use my older or miniature RWS decks which retain her titles.

I'm unclear if its a publisher/artist communication thing, or if the artists don't care sometimes. It just seems like all this care goes into the illustration, and then this perfunctory title gets slapped on.

Or maybe I'm nuts. I just think some decks, the Morgan Greer is a good example, don't even really need titles.

Am I alone in this?

 

[Zedrex]

I'm a bit of a font geek myself and was going to ask the community here for ideas about fonts for the oracle I'm working on (an example of the images etc here if you have any thoughts on the subject http://alternateparallelreality.com/downloads/aproraclepreview.jpg )

Personally, I don't enjoy decks without titles. I think that a well chosen title can be every bit as evocative as the image, carrying nuances of meaning. I think it's important (I don't like it when the cards have the "meaning" written on them, because it's reductive and makes you look like a cheat for reading with these cards).

Just out of interest, what are some of the fonts or font choices that you actually like???

 

[nisaba]

I barely even notice the titles. If you named all of my favourite, most-used decks, I couldn't tell you a thing about their titles, not even if they were at the top or the bottom. I tend to look at the images.

 

[3ill.yazi]

I'm a bit of a font geek myself and was going to ask the community here for ideas about fonts for the oracle I'm working on (an example of the images etc here if you have any thoughts on the subject http://alternateparallelreality.com/downloads/aproraclepreview.jpg )

Personally, I don't enjoy decks without titles. I think that a well chosen title can be every bit as evocative as the image, carrying nuances of meaning. I think it's important (I don't like it when the cards have the "meaning" written on them, because it's reductive and makes you look like a cheat for reading with these cards).

Just out of interest, what are some of the fonts or font choices that you actually like???

I think it's not so much which font, but that it matches the feel of the deck. If you look at the top ten decks list at AT, many of these decks have plain old Times Roman style fonts. But they they incorporate them in ways like the Legacy of the Divine, in which the colors match, or the Tyldwyck, which grunges up the titles, or the Wild Unknown, which has the same kind of raven armed with an ink quill look.

The Deviant Moon has kind of a we've seen it before somewhere lettering, but it is neatly centered. The Ellis Deck incorporates the titles into the art, with varying degrees of success, but it's trying.

Even after you pick a font, there are things to do like kerning it the right way, squeezing the spaces between the letters and words right so it looks one with the page, instead of just slapped on it.

I think it's best to use an unobtrusive font, and unless your are hand drawing them yourself, avoid script, which can be hard to read and tricky to format IMO.

 

[FLizarraga]

YES. ENORMOUSLY.

I'm a compulsive trimmer, and I rarely keep them. Borders and titles --I have developed a sort of allergy to them.

 

[tarotbear]

Someone 'could' design a deck that has no titles, and only numbers ...

 

[nisaba]

It's been done. In the 1400s. And they didn't bother with numbers, either.

 

[herself]

The Bonefire did that for me. Titles beautifully worked in to the artwork on the card itself, and someone still felt like they needed to add the title again at the bottom. I would have loved it so much more without the extra titles at the bottom.

 

[SunChariot]

Someone 'could' design a deck that has no titles, and only numbers ...

The A King's Journey Tarot has not titles of numbers. I do love that deck but it is still OOP.

Babs

 

[SunChariot]

This might fall under the "what one flaw ruins a deck for you" thread, but I thought it was specific enough to pull out on its own, because it has less to do with the card images.

I'm a font geek, a word nerd, and often an otherwise wonderful deck will look ghastly to me because of the font/lettering choice for the card titles.

I think the images on the Morgan Greer are compelling in a bold 70s way, but the titles seem so slapped-on and much more dated. I love to Haindl deck, but the versions I've seen reduce the whole image to put in a very bland title.

The Robin Wood deck I also find compelling, but it and similar decks have this kinda-Tolkien, sorta trying to be medieval font that is distracting. I swear I've even sen the dreaded Papyrus font on a deck.

I'm less wound up about the RWS sans PCS hand lettering issue, as I don't find the simple Times New Roman-ish font that USG uses to be easy to read. Though I prefer to use my older or miniature RWS decks which retain her titles.

I'm unclear if its a publisher/artist communication thing, or if the artists don't care sometimes. It just seems like all this care goes into the illustration, and then this perfunctory title gets slapped on.

Or maybe I'm nuts. I just think some decks, the Morgan Greer is a good example, don't even really need titles.

Am I alone in this?

Definitely don't think you're nuts. We are all entitled to our feelings.

For me though, none of this ever occurred to me, in all my years of reading,. Never thought of it once. I am not a fan of trimmed decks, personally, I like keywords. But the font makes no difference to me at all. I am focusing on the message it is giving me so I don't notice anything else.

Babs