5 Golden Rules of Game Cards Graphic Design You MUST OBEY

Five golden rules to design the perfect card. Improve your board game design through graphic design. Tips and tricks and the best practices for designing your cards layout. Graphic design tips for beginners for the best card layout for tabletop and collectable card games.

In this video, we're going to discuss the 5 golden rules of game card graphic design. These rules will help you create beautiful and professional game cards.

If you're interested in bumping up your games graphic design, then you need to watch this video! We'll discuss the basic concepts of game card graphic design, and give you some tips on how to create beautiful and professional game cards. By following these 5 golden rules, you'll be on your way to becoming a professional card designer!

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This video could save you literal months of tedious work on your next game.

00:00 Intro
00:49 Dextrous
01:50 Never obscure vital elements
04:23 Follow Visual Hierarchy
07:30 If it can be said in fewer words, say it in fewer words
09:00 If it’s said repeatedly, say it in symbols
10:53 Art is paramount

[gaijinco]

I'll add a golden rule: in addition to giving a name to a card, also provide an ID, . I'm a native Spanish speaker who is also fluent in English. Most of the games I buy are in English but from time I buy something in Spanish. It is not secret that the gaming community that speaks English is much larger than the one that speaks Spanish so if I want to get clarification about a card but only know the Spanish name, it's tough to find someone who can answer the question. Even if I try to translate the test, it's not as simple as asking with the ID of the card. Even if you think you'll never sell a copy in another language it's so simple to do it, it might also be simpler for English speaker to remember an ID rather than a name, and if in the future you end selling copies in another language you are already prepared for this scenario.

[MrLazyleader]

This video would've been so much better if you placed your cards on the table instead of waving them into the camera for a second.

[Demki]

Adding another silver rule: When in doubt don't rely on color alone to convey crucial information, if your palette has a few colors match each of them with a distinctive shape and you'll boost readability for anyone with color vision deficiency

[loganpark]

You’re on to something with this video: substantive advice, insider game design seasoned perspective, solid editing, zero clickbaityness. Solid.

[jeffgood]

You have to be careful with symbols. Too many (or poor icons) and you risk creating a whole symbolic language that players have to learn before they can play, making the cards harder to read.

[Medbread]

"If it can be said in fewer words, say it in fewer words"

Meanwhile Yu-Gi-Oh: You can remove 6 Spell Counters from your field; Special Summon this card from the Pendulum Zone, then count the number of cards you control that can have a Spell Counter, destroy up to that many cards on the field, and if you do, place spell Counters on this card equal to the number of cards destroyed. you can only use this effect of "Endymion, the Mighty Master of Magic" once per turn. Once per turn, when a Spell/Trap Card of effect is activated (Quick Effect): You can return 1 card you control with a Spell Counter to the hand, and if you do, negate the activation, and if you do that, destroy it. Then, you can place the same number of Spell counters on this card that the returned card had. While this card has a Spell Counter, your opponent cannot target it with card effects, also it cannot be destroyed by your opponent's card effects. When this card with a Spell Counter is destroyed by battle: You can add 1 Normal Spell from your Deck to your hand.

[pokinfunatcartman]

I think the example of Magic really is shaped by how you fan the cards in your hand; for example, i have always naturally fanned cards so that the "topmost" card was on the left, so costs were always unobscured. It has never occured to me that some people were arranging their hands so that the topmost card was on the right. I'm also right-handed.

[jarod]

Only just now am i realising that right handed magic players have the cost covered up, something i hope never changes, lefties need every win they can get

[drawingmoo]

As an illustrator primarily and working on a game with a friend of mine, it made me tear up a little to see "Art is paramount" tacked on at the end. I love seeing appreciation for the visual elements get so much weight, and I love the emphasis of the art as a core game element. *Note: being the principal illustrator for an entire game is murder on the wrists, BUT, tons of fun.*

Thank you for your video. I probably have some layouts to revisit haha

[hotfishdev]

On adding symbols to the card, I disagree that they should outright replace text. If you study Magic cards, you’ll see that while they use, for example, the tap symbol when saying “tap the card to do this”, if they mention tapping in the rest of the text they say the word “tap”. They only have a few symbols that they routinely use in the actual ability text: those for mana costs, and even then it’s used sparingly. People know how to read words, but they don’t come to your game knowing what your symbols mean in the context of your game. If you send them to the reference manual too many times to figure out what your symbols mean it’ll be frustrating. You can still use your symbols if you think they’d be useful, but reminder text (again, see mtg) is a good idea so that players stay immersed.

[calebharding]

As a long time magic player with an interest in game design I love how MTG is the exception to most of these rules. Goes to show what defining a genre can do for you

[leonfeargus]

Nice video, very helpful.
One thing I would add is that the secondary purpose of the artwork is to make cards easily recognizable from a distance for players who have played the game before.

[fernandobanda]

I'd be very careful with symbols. If the first card I ever read says something like "[symbol I've never seen] 1 of your [another symbol I've never seen]", I'm probably not going to be very interested. If it happens during a game, not only am I going to have to look it up, I won't even know what to Google. Even if I have an experienced player who can help me, is going to be very embarrassing and confusing to ask "what does the little symbol that kinda looks like a question mark mean?"

On the other hand, if symbols *reinforce* an idea, then I 100% agree. In your game, I see the big green green in your card. So when the effect asks if the card below is [green gem], I immediately get what it means, even if "green gem" isn't the right term.

Keywords are very similar in that regard but: they (should) have reminder text, and at least they're words you can say to ask. Plain symbols replacing entire words or phrases are a problem if they're important.

[bradensorensen]

I’ve never once had a problem reading what my cards cost in my hand while playing MTG.

They even tried “fixing” this problem in the Future Sight set and then realized it wasn’t broken to begin with.

[lachlanclews-decastella]

Art serves a extremely important function: it allows people to mentally chunk the effects of a card to an image. It's much easier to tell apart images than blocks of text, especially with cards in hand. After reading my cards, I can remember what they do at a glance by seeing the artwork.
Yu-Gi-Oh especially utilizes this. Then there's the connections between art and effects, if the art is of a magical effect, I expect a spell, it gets me in the right mindset to understand the effect of the card. If the art is a big monster, I expect a big monster stats.

I've been working slowly on the art for my game, and the cards with art are 50x easier to play with than the ones without.

[JandenHale]

I had to learn some of these rules the hard way. Designing card layout and legibility is a lot harder than people realize.

[ethandowler]

I designed a card game a few years ago, and I've always wanted to take it to the next level. I recently got excited about updating it, and this video showed up just in time. Thanks, Dave! Great info

[SenkaZver]

I'll interject one counter point: art is the most important, and should take up the most space, because it conveys the most information the fastest. When a card becomes known, and reading it is no longer necessary, the image will immediately alert the player(s) to what the card is.
Like Pot of Greed or Black Lotus. The cards are known enough and remembered enough that the image immediately invokes their effects and names.

[muchskin]

you helped me evolve my card designs just by 10min of advice! Great! Really like the simplicity of the "Favor of the Rabbits" at 10:23!

[Will_Forge]

On that first rule, I fan with my thumb, not with my fingers. I think it comes from playing video games as much as I have, but it was also because I specifically fan my cards the way I do due to Magic Card layouts. The power and toughness is very inconveniently under my right hand thumb, but knowing the cost rules out cards before their power and toughness is relevant anyway, so I can move my thumb to see that or the card effect. Whichever I need to see right now. Memorizing my cards also lets me only consider them on if I can play them or not, which means my method of fanning which is just "reverse how you do it" and is just as easy and viable as your method. Not sure why you do it that way unless you're playing Poker, honestly. But anyway, that's not a flaw on the cards. It's a very minor mistake in your method of holding them.

In the case of Magic the cost is simply on the same side as the power and toughness to allow you to expose both at the same time. This is particularly useful is OG Magic where you had many monsters that only had a power and toughness and no effect, so you could stack them to cover everything except the card's colors (in the cost), and power and toughness on the same side.

I'm not making this comment to say "you're wrong" because you're not! Just like with your method of fanning your hand works best for Poker and some other games but not for Magic, it's an element of the game that's designed for. There is no "correct location" for a cost. There is only a "best location for your game" for a cost assuming you have a cost. So yeah, you're right in your case, but I wanted to make this comment to help anyone new to game design understand that like all other examples and rules of design the location of your card's cost is up to interpretation within the confines of your game.

Also try fanning your Magic cards out with your thumb instead.