Well, having bought a very "non-standard" first tarot deck (Fey Tarot) and realised that, while gorgeous, it's probably not ideal for learning even the rather more intuition based tarot, I decided to go with a pretty straightforward first Lenormand - French Cartomancy (the Lo Scarabeo one). I like it a lot, the pictures are clear, it's got the card inserts so I can try and get to grips with that side of things, etc. The card seems nice, not too floppy, not too stiff, and the box doesn't seem too flimsy or annoying to open/close.
I'm daydreaming about a few of the more artsy ones (I really like... I think it's the Moonshadow deck, for example) or maybe something like the Viking Lenormand (I think my teenager would love that one) at some point, but for now I'm sticking with this one. I would quite like a mini deck, too, though, I'm thinking of buying one of those novelty mini playing card decks and altering them (probably with stickers rather than Tipp-ex/white-out) although my drawings would be rather basic!