Cat*
From June 11 (copy):
Folks, I need your opinions.
We've already heard about the one huge card that Le Fanu didn't know how to trim. We've also heard that this card got damaged right on Frankie's first trip to Oddity. It has been mentioned that the deck now has an added piece of very sturdy cardboard in that card's size to help minimize further damage (still, despite its sturdiness, the cardboard already has one bent corner from being in the mail). And we've heard that the deck now barely fits the gorgeous patchwork bag from BlueDragonfly, and that at least two people have used a different bag to actually carry the Frankendecken around.
I've taken a few pictures to show those of you who haven't seen the deck yet what we're talking about:
First, the two largest cards in comparison (the back clearly shows how bent one of the corners is already).
Second, a side view of the deck, to point out the size difference altogether (the two bottom cards are again the largest ones, and the deck is roughly level on the side that is in the back of the picture).
Third, the largest card in comparison to the bag. Please note that the bag can't be closed right now at all because the card is higher than the lowest stitching for the drawstring.
So it seems we have four options in this situation:
1. Leave things as they are and hope that the huge card won't be completely destroyed after it has been to 30 more people (which I doubt is a realistic hope if it's pretty bent already after only three times in the mail).
2. Make the original pouch a little bigger (which I could theoretically do, but it would mean messing with BlueDragonfly's work, and that just doesn't feel right).
3. Make a new bag that fits the deck more comfortably (which I could also do, but which would make the pretty original patchwork pouch a bit pointless, which also doesn't feel right).
4. Trim the huge card so it doesn't stand out so much and won't get damaged any further, and so that the bag doesn't get damaged by repeatedly squeezing the deck into it and wiggling it out of it.
Personally, I vote for option #4. The problem won't go away, and I really don't see anyone being happy with how the bag and deck fit together right now. So I'd vote for doing something to improve the situation sooner rather than later. It seems silly and disrespectful to mess with BlueDragonfly's careful hand-sewing, and equally silly and disrespectful to just whip up a new bag and not use hers at all. Since this is a community project, I didn't want to just snip away at the card, but wanted to hear some other opinions first.
So I took a cell phone picture of the card in question and played around in Photoshop a little to see in what ways it could be trimmed if this is what we decide to do. The fourth attachment shows the original card, plus five versions of trimming it (the photo wasn't exactly level, so the "cutting" is a wee bit off at times - which means the actual cutting would look a lot better in any case
).
#1 is the original.
#2 looks best and would keep some of the pretty border, but it would still be too long to be able to close the bag by its drawstrings.
#3 and #5 are pretty similar, except for the white border. The problem here is that the butterfly suit symbol gets cut in half. These two are my second favorites.
#6 is the minimum trimming that would make any sense. The results of this would make the card the same size as the second biggest one (from the Victoria Regina deck). The problem with the cut-through butterfly remains. Plus, I think it looks a bit off-balance with borders everywhere but at the top.
#4 is the most radical cut. It barely looks as if it has been trimmed, which is why I like it best. The drawback is that the pretty border would be entirely gone. I don't mind the suit symbol being gone much, because there isn't any other card from the same deck anyway, so we don't need to be able to tell the suits apart by their symbols.
(I guess we could also cut off the bottom border with the card title and keep the butterfly. But that would make the card practically un-identifiable, so I didn't even photoshop this.)
So, what do you think? How should we approach this dilemma? To cut or not to cut? And if so, where?
Folks, I need your opinions.
We've already heard about the one huge card that Le Fanu didn't know how to trim. We've also heard that this card got damaged right on Frankie's first trip to Oddity. It has been mentioned that the deck now has an added piece of very sturdy cardboard in that card's size to help minimize further damage (still, despite its sturdiness, the cardboard already has one bent corner from being in the mail). And we've heard that the deck now barely fits the gorgeous patchwork bag from BlueDragonfly, and that at least two people have used a different bag to actually carry the Frankendecken around.
I've taken a few pictures to show those of you who haven't seen the deck yet what we're talking about:
First, the two largest cards in comparison (the back clearly shows how bent one of the corners is already).
Second, a side view of the deck, to point out the size difference altogether (the two bottom cards are again the largest ones, and the deck is roughly level on the side that is in the back of the picture).
Third, the largest card in comparison to the bag. Please note that the bag can't be closed right now at all because the card is higher than the lowest stitching for the drawstring.
So it seems we have four options in this situation:
1. Leave things as they are and hope that the huge card won't be completely destroyed after it has been to 30 more people (which I doubt is a realistic hope if it's pretty bent already after only three times in the mail).
2. Make the original pouch a little bigger (which I could theoretically do, but it would mean messing with BlueDragonfly's work, and that just doesn't feel right).
3. Make a new bag that fits the deck more comfortably (which I could also do, but which would make the pretty original patchwork pouch a bit pointless, which also doesn't feel right).
4. Trim the huge card so it doesn't stand out so much and won't get damaged any further, and so that the bag doesn't get damaged by repeatedly squeezing the deck into it and wiggling it out of it.
Personally, I vote for option #4. The problem won't go away, and I really don't see anyone being happy with how the bag and deck fit together right now. So I'd vote for doing something to improve the situation sooner rather than later. It seems silly and disrespectful to mess with BlueDragonfly's careful hand-sewing, and equally silly and disrespectful to just whip up a new bag and not use hers at all. Since this is a community project, I didn't want to just snip away at the card, but wanted to hear some other opinions first.
So I took a cell phone picture of the card in question and played around in Photoshop a little to see in what ways it could be trimmed if this is what we decide to do. The fourth attachment shows the original card, plus five versions of trimming it (the photo wasn't exactly level, so the "cutting" is a wee bit off at times - which means the actual cutting would look a lot better in any case
).#1 is the original.
#2 looks best and would keep some of the pretty border, but it would still be too long to be able to close the bag by its drawstrings.
#3 and #5 are pretty similar, except for the white border. The problem here is that the butterfly suit symbol gets cut in half. These two are my second favorites.
#6 is the minimum trimming that would make any sense. The results of this would make the card the same size as the second biggest one (from the Victoria Regina deck). The problem with the cut-through butterfly remains. Plus, I think it looks a bit off-balance with borders everywhere but at the top.
#4 is the most radical cut. It barely looks as if it has been trimmed, which is why I like it best. The drawback is that the pretty border would be entirely gone. I don't mind the suit symbol being gone much, because there isn't any other card from the same deck anyway, so we don't need to be able to tell the suits apart by their symbols.
(I guess we could also cut off the bottom border with the card title and keep the butterfly. But that would make the card practically un-identifiable, so I didn't even photoshop this.)
So, what do you think? How should we approach this dilemma? To cut or not to cut? And if so, where?
