Okay, so my kickstarter for the parrot deck is doing pretty well, but it's obviously aimed more at people who love parrots than people who collect cards. I've really started to get more into the design aspect of cards - but I'm still stuck on birds, hehe. This time, owls, and for the King of Spades, the Eurasian Eagle Owl. I tried to put a bit of symbolism in the card.
I have a few thoughts/worries: are the details too fine? Is it too confusing/muddled, especially in the middle? How do the indices look? I obviously didn't spend a lot of time on them, or the tree branches. I think the card still needs a lot of work, but I'm curious if there's potential there.
If you're going strictly for art, it's a great piece of work and a full deck like this would be something to behold.
If you're also going for function, you need to make a few modifications.
Players like vertical indices rather than horizontal because they allow the cards to be held closer together in order to keep others from seeing their hand. Value is listed before suit because in many games, value is the more important of the two in many circumstances.
I would advise against printing the artwork all the way into the bleed (past the point where the card edge gets cut). When this occurs, the edges can reveal, to the sharp eye, what's on the face of the card, giving one knowledge of what's being dealt. Consider allowing at least a narrow border around the art, far enough from the edge that an accidentally-shifted deck sheet won't cut across the artwork. Consult with your printer as far as what their tolerances are for cutting accuracy.
If you have more questions, I do offer consulting services for deck designers at a very reasonable rate.
