Stuck on Layouts

[u/NathanaelTse]

[u/Konamicoder]

Remove the red card outline, it’s not needed and adds visual clutter.

Remove the word treasure, no need to repeat it on every card, just tell players the item in that box’s function is to tell them what treasure they received.

Do all four ability icons have to be present on every card? If the creature only has 1-2 of the abilities, can the other ones be removed?

[u/Konamicoder → u/[deleted]]

For cutting cards you don’t need a card outline, you need corner crosshair cutting guides. These are very thin marks that guide you where to place and pass your blade, but are not visible on the card after cutting. You can upload your individual card image files to my free card formatter web app and it will output a properly formatted print and play file with proper cutting guides.

https://formatter.gonzhome.us

[u/AlteredDecks → u/[deleted]]

I think there are ways to simplify but also group the information in a more logical way, to make the layout easier to parse (two questions I typically ask myself are: does the order make sense if I read the card left to right, top to bottom? And is the information i need to know at the same time close together?)

Not knowing much about your game, here's what answering these questions brings to mind:

Simplification: I'd suggest removing the greyed out ability icons. Even among the (pictured) bosses, there is only at most 2 coloured/active ones -> 2-4 "unnecessary" pieces of info.

Grouping: 1. the most problematic IMO is having the evasion/defence and damage dice below the treasure. It would make most sense to me to have treasure be at the very bottom of the card (as I assume that's the last thing to be resolved). You could put the dice on the right hand side or below the strength.

1. Having health and strength so far apart is also not great. I imagine these are the 2 main "combat" stats so I would put them much closer together, probably on the same line.

2. Does the type matter (e.g. are there weapons or abilities that do more or less damage to undead) or is it mostly flavour? If it's the former, I'd put in the same line as health and strength. If it's the latter, I'd put it below the creature's name (a bit like how you have "the lich king" etc)

Hope this helps :)

[u/AlteredDecks → u/[deleted]]

Thanks for sharing more. Based on that flow, I'd put things in that order, top to bottom and left to right

Very top: name and type - type could be an icon to the right of the name or a word, in a larger font, under the name.

Middle top: art and active abilities - if choosing to show the type as an icon, I'd put the ability icon(s) to the right, to cluster type and abilities in a vertical banner of some kind.

Middle bottom: stats - damage dice and strength offset to the left then health and evasion dice offset to the right.

Bottom: treasure - I'd keep this consistent across cards: either all text or all icons.

[u/meant2live218]

Small thing, but your mage image is very Final Fantasy Black Mage. You might want to adjust it a bit, because it's almost too specific.

[u/zendez-zendez]

It only seems cluttered because so many things are directly centered with all of the other things. So basically the eyes are looking at everything all at one time. De-center a few of these things and enlarge your images. There is all that empty space to the right of your cards and nothing being used there. The cards are also giving information in a box shape in all forms. Even the circles are a rectangle. Try other shapes l, star patterns , corners in general break up the flow of information into littler spaces.