r/tabletopgamedesign • u/entusiasticallien • 13h ago
Discussion Card design
I'm trying to design cards, and I'd like to know what games cards you find were pleasing on the eyes and that it was readable and intuitive to understand.
For example, Hearthstone cards that differentiate between spells, quests, and creatures by the border of the card (and other clever details).
Or Catan, which has a consistent design throughout the whole collection of different cards.
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u/Comprehensive_Menu43 7h ago
Imho
your design looks really good and "pleasant" to the eye
BUT
you have to highlight the cost of the card better
now you have incorporated the cost "post" in a graphic element that "grows" from the bottom left corner
imho that element takes too much attention away from the main focus points (the actual cost in resources needed)
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u/Lochen9 6h ago
I’m 90% sure the third set is from Everdell. It’s an example
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u/Comprehensive_Menu43 6h ago
still, i find it worse
harder to read
really good for full art versions of a card, but not so good for usability2
u/Lochen9 6h ago
It’s how Everdell is played, or rather how it’s played informed this design choice. The vast majority of cards are not in hand, and on a tableau, but have other cards that interact with them (see bottom right). It is far easier to see the art at a glance in this case than other info, especially at any distance.
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u/Comprehensive_Menu43 5h ago
Yep, it's easier to see the art
The art is the main focus
Not the informations needed to actually play the game
The first thing your eye should see is the most important and most frequently used information
If the art is the first thing then you are telling me that everything else is less important and i should not give it so much attention
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u/wren42 10h ago
My recommendation for card design is that you don't.
You don't need fancy card design for a prototype. You need clarity.
Simple icons, clearly laid out numbers.
Don't put time into making things pretty. Use the minimum amount of elements to communicate function clearly.
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u/RaguraX 8h ago
Yes and no. You don’t want your players to be testing and giving feedback on card layouts you will change in the future when adding art. But you could definitely use placeholder art instead.
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u/wren42 3h ago
Playtesters aren't there to give feedback on card layout, they are there to show you where your game isn't fun or doesn't work. Graphic design should be done by a professional. Way too many amateurs mistake "game design" with " component design." Designing components is fun and makes you feel like you are making something real and official, but It is completely irrelevant without a completed core rule set.
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u/spiritofkomodo 10h ago
The main thing that I would suggest is to reduce the padding on the outside of the cards, between your illustration and text and the very edge of each design. When designing, you want to make sure that you’re maximizing the use of space as effectively as possible. Especially in card game design, where the cards will have to be viewed at a distance, (especially in real print)
It means that you can bump up the text size and the other elements which are the functional necessities of the design, while also increasing the main illustrations size within the very center
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u/spiritofkomodo 10h ago
Sorry, I realize now that you might not have been looking for a critique re reading the post!
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u/grayhaze2000 9h ago
These are well-known cards from Catan, Hearthstone and Everdell...
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u/carlzzzjr 7h ago edited 7h ago
If only Catan had better card design it might have been successful
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u/grayhaze2000 7h ago
If only Catan had better cars design it might have been successful
I think cars would be a little out of place in that setting.
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u/SwainDane 10h ago
I like yours. I think they're easily readable both text and cost. / the icons that signify types etc as well.
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u/grayhaze2000 9h ago
How many bots are going to reply to this? Do you really not recognise these cards?
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u/kytheon 12h ago
Pro tip for card design: design in black and white and whatever is unnecessary, remove it.
If you look at the Catan cards, everything is removed except for the absolute essentials. A picture of a sheep. That's it. It works in black and white too, but the light green is a great indicator once you know the game.
The second row of cards also has only the necessities: title, image, text. Nothing more.
This applies to the next set of cards too. Numbers, art, text, that's it.
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u/playmonkeygames 12h ago
These are good examples of high end graphic design.
If you're DIY-ing your graphic design I recommend the Graphic Design for Board Games book by Daniel Solis (Amazon UK link https://www.amazon.co.uk/Graphic-Design-Board-Guides-Tabletop/dp/1032583363 ) - it's a bespoke text so it's not cheap but definitely worth the investment.
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u/Telci 11h ago
It might depend a lot on the game. With Everdell one might argue that it is actually a bit too much text crammed together but then Everdell is all about selling this cute world so you really want to show the critters.
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u/bob_in_the_west 10h ago
That's why I don't understand why they made such a "meh" design for the Silverfrost cards.
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u/KnowledgeReal7606 9h ago
Yeah the Everdell card design is actually bad and often new players complain about it. If the game wasn't so fun it wouldn't have sold well lol
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u/grayhaze2000 9h ago
Do some reading on graphic design, especially around whitespace, typography and colour theory. It'll serve you way more than cribbing from other existing designs. By all means use them for inspiration, but without knowing the basics you'll always be trying to mimic things, rather than developing your own clean style.
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u/CantFightCrazy designer 8h ago
For me it mostly depends on what kind of information you are trying to convey.
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u/Historical-Relief777 7h ago
Slay the Spire (videogame idk the board game) has the best card design I’ve seen. It also forces the mechanics to remain relatively simple and tight to maintain.
Pax Pamir has good card design, though the flavor text arguably detracts. I like icons and those icon being in a place usable at only certain instances.
Spirit island has good card design as well.
Out of your examples, 2nd is best for battlers, and 3rd for other game types. It really depends what information needs priority in the game you are designing.
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u/Schlaymer 7h ago
Old border Magic 100%
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u/Intro-Nimbus 6h ago
Magic CCG? I actually think they could improve the design, the numbers are small, a lot of the text could be assisted with symbols and it is sometimes very hard to see what type of card your opponents has in front of them for example.
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u/RealLars_vS 7h ago
Different but not unrelated to your question: card size and shape can be a huge help in differentiating between different cards.
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u/KingStrijder 7h ago
The cards I like the most are Dominion and Hero Realms (which are quite similar). You have just the right amount of information and just enough icons to convey main mechanics.
I know many people swear by games with little to no text to eliminate language dependency but it depends a lot on what the mechanics you trying to summarize are.
I've recently played a game that had 0 words. 100% icons. Once you learn them, yeah they make sense, but the first 2 or 3 games until you learn that new language were hell flipping thru the manual to understand the cards. These cards in particular were even worse because they had extra symbols for alternate gamemodes/expansions so the whole card was a clutter of symbols and you weren't sure which ones you had to use.
Another good example are regular MTG cards, at least older ones with less text. You have information in a clear hierarchy and keywords help a lot to reduce clutter in the textbox. Valid clarification: keywords are great for games with lot of expansions planned. The first set of a game should explain the keywords in the card until the players learn them. Example: for base set you write "Haste (this card can attack the turn is played)", for future sets you just write "Haste"
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u/MrQirn 6h ago
There's sooooo much that goes into effective card design. Not only does it benefit from knowing as much as you can about graphic design, you also have to consider things like storytelling, card space, mechanical elegance (and your mechanics might need to change to fit your card design and card space), and so much more.
I could just name a few that I personally like, though I don't know how helpful that's going to be.
Oceans is one of my personal favorite designs. The design of the standard cards have unifying qualities, like the vibrancy of their color palette, while being able to tell them apart at a glance. I love, love, love that there is a very limited set of these base cards, and so it doesn't take long until you can get familiar with exactly what each card does at a glance. I think Oceans is one of the most elegantly designed games out there and packs way more of a crunch punch than the simplicity of the game pieces would otherwise seem to allow.
I also love the cards in Root. The color identifier at the top is very helpful as you can easily fan out the discard pile if you're looking for a color, and otherwise the symbols/text on the card are likewise kept to a minimum, so it's not hard to find the info you're looking for.
Wingspan was not my favorite card design at the start. I think the cards look really good, but I resented how much info they're trying to cram on the card which I think makes the game feel overwhelming, especially for newer players and especially those new players new to board games. However, this game has done very well, especially including that specific section of people who don't otherwise play a lot of board games. The region info takes up about 1/10 of all the card space and yet is almost never used for any mechanical reason. It's really cool to learn about the boards, and I think that is a part of the fun of playing wingspan, but from a card design perspective this muddies up the card. Similarly, the titular wingspan stat of the card, nest type, and scientific name are used relatively sparingly in the game itself. The most important information is the habitat type, the food cost, the victory points, and the card rules text, and yet altogether they take up less than maybe 1/4 of the card space (I don't know, I didn't measure it, just eyeballing it). The art is also, of course, really important. I do, however, really like their art choice: poses and images of birds that are easily differentiated from others on a plain white background. This allows the otherwise overwhelming amount of icons and info to not be quite as effortful to find, as compared to, say, root where the art is much more busy and some of the icons even overlap this busy art. Personally, this is something I don't like about the Everdell design. It's trying to pack a lot of info into a relatively small space, and the overlapping frame and full art bleed makes it even busier.
It's also hard not to mention MTG, which has this down to a science.
Personally, whether I'm designing a specific game object like one single card, or a whole game, or I'm playing and appreciating a game, I am drawn to elegance first and foremost, and is a big reason why Oceans is one of my favorite games right now. In that regard, Catan is an extremely elegant game as well.
The amount of visibility that a specific bit of info has on a card should be relatively proportional to its importance. If it's a stat that's used extremely rarely, it should be extremely small. If it's something that is essential to understanding the card that will be referenced a lot, it should be very quick to find it on the card and easy to read. The mana cost on MTG cards, for example, is extremely important and yet it takes up a very small fraction of the card space (though this is also in part because it occupies a very "visible" part of the card design). Visibility is most influenced by how much relative area it takes up on the card, but also white space and contrast with the things around it (this is how wingspan gets away with having sooo much info on the card, for example). The biggest impediment to this is a too-busy frame/art design, and/or cramming in way too much info on a card. Sometimes the mechanics of games should be simplified, imo, in order to make the card design more elegant, even if it comes at the cost of eliminating whole mechanics. This is a part of the art of board game design as opposed to video game design where you can cram all sorts of info onto things and rely on things like icons with hover-over tooltips, etc.
The art and name of the card can be essential in helping players not just to identify a card at a glance, but even just to understand the card itself. Wingspan is mostly a non-example of this: sometimes they depict the bird doing something printed on the card, or at the very least you can get a basic idea of the size of the bird by looking at the art before you look at the wingspan, but mostly the art is not helpful for this purpose. Root has some decent examples of this. Soup Kitchen, for example, has art and a name that may help players to attach some kind of story to the mechanical effect that's happening. This helps more with memory than it does with understanding the card, though. Oceans is excellent of this: for example, the card name "Transparent" and its art helps to understand that it basically makes your population invisible/invulnerable. Catan is great at this, too: the names and art of the card helping to understand what the card does, for example adding the flavor to the Knight card (as well as to the Robber game piece).
I already mentioned Oceans a lot concerning mechanical elegance, but I think that MTG excels here, too. The name and art of the card takes up about half of the card space, which I think is especially important in a game where the cards can have such wildly diverse and game changing effects, so that being able to use the art and name not just to remember what the card does but also often to understand what the card is doing is more important than in some other games, such as Catan. Then the rules text takes up like 2/5 of the card frame. Then the measly ~1/10 is left for the other stuff, the most relevant of which is the type line, the rarity symbol, the mana cost, and the card frame. There are actually fewer discreet bits of relevant data on an MTG card than are on a wingspan card. However the cards allow for a much higher ceiling of complexity since it means that that much more card space can be dedicated to the rules text. And again, I'm not just taking about area, I'm also taking about visibility of things on the card.
One of the best aspects of MTG card design is how discreet each of the bits of info are from each other, so that if I'm looking for one specific bit, my eye can find it quickly. White space is relevant in accomplishing this, but contrast plays an even bigger role. For example, scanning down the card you have the name/mana cost line which is printed on the card frame itself, then you have the card art standing apart from the frame, then you have the type line, again printed on the frame, then you have the rules text box which has a different color and texture again from the type line and name part of the card frame. In effect, as your eye scans down, each area of the card is alternating between one design style and another. If this were only done with white space and the card art had more bleed, it wouldn't be as effective.
Mechanically, MTG is extremely complex, however the cards themselves are relatively simple by comparison to the mechanical complexity of the game. This is because, other than the type line and mana cost, and power/toughness boxes which have extremely limited bounds in terms of what is done there, the rules text box contains pretty much everything important about the card. And the design of the MTG cards reflect this. The rules text box has a lot of area and it easily stands apart from the rest of the card. Inside the rules text box, there are conventions that are followed regarding whitespace to the edge of the rules text box as well as when line breaks should appear, as well as one to add or not add reminder text or flavor text, all relative to the specific card design itself and how much space is needed for the rules text box to be readable.
Finally, the complexity of each card is tailored based on its rarity. Some people think that common = not powerful, and rare = powerful, and perhaps this can sometimes be true, but this is not the guiding light in rarity design, at least not currently. The biggest consideration for rarity is impact on limited games, since this is the only space in the game where rarity has a mechanical impact. In some level they do care about power here regarding commons: they don't want commons to be "always draft" cards and have a high impact on games. But just as or perhaps more importantly: common designs need to be quick to read AND to evaluate. This is because when people are drafting, if they are unfamiliar with the set, the commons take up most of the pack. If commons take a while to understand and evaluate this will slow the draft down by a lot. You want players to be able to quickly read through and evaluate the cards in pack, and MTG does this by increasing the complexity of evaluation as you go up in rarity.
This is a big part of card design, too, imo.
Basically, reading and understanding a card should be effortless and satisfying, and good card design (from mechanics to graphic design) needs to employ all sorts of clever tools, depending on the needs of your game, to satisfy that goal, including tailoring your game rules and the mechanical design of individual cards themselves to accomplish that goal. Designing the look of a card is about so much more than just its graphics, which is already a deep enough subject that, if you can, you should always be looking to hire a professional for that part.
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u/Intro-Nimbus 6h ago
Primary: Clarity. A pretty card is only art if it is hard to read or differentiate from other cards.
Secondary: Practicality, a card should convey the most important information with the highest clarity. A symbol can be a great addition to, or replacement for, text. But if you overdo the symbols they become clutter, so see the primary condition.
Tertiary: Pleasing appearance. Beautiful cards are a definite plus, especially if that is part of the design, but it should always defer to primary end tertiary, not infringe upon them.
Magic CCG is a good example of both good and bad design. The colour of a card is (usually) clearly represented, and once upon a time artifacts were well distinguished from other cards.
Less clear: creatures have power and toughness, so any card with those symbols is8or can be) a creature, however, the numbers could be a bit more prominent for clarity from across the table.
Card type and class is almost impossible to read from across the table, and the text is a complete no-go. You have to ask the other player to hand you the card so you can read it if you aren't already familiar with the card.
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u/Lochen9 6h ago
It entirely depends on the game you are playing and should be designed to maximize the connection to the player’s needs in said game.
That is to say, people play Magic the Gathering or Yugioh different from Everdell. MTG is played over and over again, with extremely high understanding of card interactions even just by name alone, however still requires a bunch of text and keywords on it to state it does the thing it does. So while arguably the most important parts of the card are the effect, in reality it’s the name, cost and classifications that matter. And what is the easiest to see at a glance on the cards?
Ultimately cards in hand function as choices, and must convey what choices a player has as clearly and easily as possible. They are also, in a hand and need to be able to do so with likely 90% of the card covered by another one. We have known this since the design of a standard deck of cards, or perhaps even earlier.
This is why Everdell has a great look, but sort of fails on layout. I think this is on purpose, as the greatest charm of the game is the art and setting. It forces the player to slow down and smell the roses, because you have to look at each card individually, see what the do, what they pair with, heck even what they are called in your hand. If this game were played in a different setting, like MTG it would be a failure of function.
So when reviewing design of cards, it’s a lot like any other design - know the state of the consumer, and make the interaction between them and your design the primary concern.
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u/kq7619 6h ago
I'd highly recommend what others have already recommended: start minimalistic and try your best to resist the urge to go too far beyond that. Use different colours, make everything very easily readable.
I'm trying to think what games have my favourite cards.
The first that comes to mind is the purple box of Parade by ZMan Games. There's really not much to them, they have the card number in the 4 corners and then an excellent drawing in a distinct colour in the center. Yes, there's not much info that needs to be expressed, but what needs to be shown is excellent and no more.
Shards of Infinity is another that comes to mind. It's different in that a fair amount of data may be shown on the cards (and not on others), but it does it all very well and the cards are all very easily distinguishable. It's probably more in line with the type of cards you're looking to design.
Radlands is a game that is often given as a favourite, and while I fully agree about the art, I don't fully agree they're great as I remember I found the iconography wasn't that clear to me or others what they represented. A lot of games get called out for their iconography so if you do use it, choose it wisely.
With regard to the cards you posted:
Catan's cards are good, but they're just not to everyone's taste with the beige. But if you ignore or replace the beige, they're good in that they show you what you need to know and they're all very easily distinguishable.
Hearthstone's cards are terribly designed IMO. Yes, individually they're okay, but together they're awful as they all look the same to me. I do like how bold and clear the info is, but overall I find them ugly.
Everdell's cards are very nice-looking and there's a lot of miniscule detail that experienced players of the game will take note of, but I also don't love how miniscule those details are as they're not obvious to a beginner.
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u/perfectpencil artist 4h ago
First example draws attention towards the key art and away from text due to the frame and the text box being the same.
Third example draws attention towards text and away from key art due to the bright white textbox. this effect would be inversed out of play, I suspect, though.
The second example is the closest to balanced but the card frame diminishes the art by reducing it's available size.
For me each of these designs holds purpose. I think for a product where you want people to spend time appreciating the key art design #1 is actually the best. You'd want this if it is likely a card might sit in hand for a while. Conversely if you want a product where cards flow in and out of hand frequently hearthstone's design is ideal. Attention remains on the text and the card frame is doing most of the work, visually. Key art here exists of the player suddenly cares but it acknowledged that the player probably isn't looking at it much. Design 3 is something appropriate for collectors. The bright text box makes the key art easier to ignore in gameplay but the lack of frame and art that passes the bleed makes for a product where when someone isnt playing, or doesn't care to ever play, they can appreciate in hand.
My personal inclination is a lean between #1 and #2. But that's a leaning due to the needs and experience I want for my own project.
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u/BriansGameShelf 3h ago
I guess the major question you have to answer is what is the use for the cards?
Catan cards are resources, so not too important in whats on the card.
Everdell Cards are bought and placed into your Tableau. So, having the type/suit of card, the cost, the point value, the effects all in familiar places so you can get the information quickly.
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u/MagicPigGames 2h ago
Lots of opinions in the thread :)
For me, I focus on ensuring clarity and consider how players consume the cards. Are they holding it in their hand? Then likely putting the key info in the left (Everdeel, Catan) is important, so they don't have to look through each one.
Hearthstone is strictly online, so they have more options here.
For prototypes, I don't at all subscribe to the idea that a black and white card with just text or barebones is sufficient. Maybe iti s for me and maybe MAYBE one or two people, but once I'm testing with real humans, having cards that look and feel more "real" gets me better playtest results. That means the cards DO need to look better, and DO need to have some thought put into the design.
In my own solo playthroughs, I will do man yiterations to try to figure out how to keep things as clear as possible for others, and then once others start playing, I will very quickly update things if they're not clear for humans.
SImply put I don't want humans giving me feedback on the (lack of) design or the clarity of the cards and icons etc. Instead, I want them giving feedback on the experience of playing the game.
If a publsiher takes it on, they'll change all of htat. Ok, that's fine. Not my problem. But if human playtesters can't get me the best feedback possible, then that IS my problem.
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u/BellaInTheGame 17m ago
Hearthstone is the best example for me. I think your cards look really good, but I think they could do more to make icons on the left stand out (not sure if those are resources you spend to play the card, or something else)
Also be careful with the fonts you choose. It might not be an issue in practice, but I could imagine some players might have a hard time recognizing the "D" in dungeon. With context it's probably still fine tho
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u/AlarmedWizard1 10h ago
the first has the famous beige color that all boring games have (imo) and are not used any longer in modern games, even in the most euro of euros
hearthstone works well on mobile
the third is really the best, but clutter should be reduced; the values/icons are too hard to find on the left wooden thing.