Logo

The Scan First, Read Later Principle

Players rarely read a card from top to bottom. They scan. In a hand of seven cards, you have perhaps two seconds per card before attention moves on. Your layout's job is to make the important information findable without conscious effort. Think of a shop sign: you do not read every letter to know what is sold. The same applies to a card. Establish a clear hierarchy — title, cost, type, rules text, flavour — and use size, weight, colour and position to rank them. If everything shouts, nothing is heard. A card that looks busy at arm's length will be unreadable across a table.

Anchoring the Title, Cost and Type

Western players read left to right, top to bottom, so the title belongs in the top-left corner or centred at the top. Costs and icons sit top-right, where the eye can run down a fanned hand and see a row of numbers or symbols. This is why so many games put resource costs in the same corner on every card. Consistency turns a hand into a scannable list. A type line — creature, spell, item — can sit directly under the title, often in a coloured bar. That colour becomes a secondary cue. Keep margins generous: 3mm from the trim edge is a safe minimum, and 2mm bleed for print. Never let a title run into the artwork without a clear separation.

Artwork as a Functional Element

Illustration is not wallpaper. It carries information: faction, mood, scale, even mechanics. Crop your art so the focal point — a face, a silhouette, a glowing object — sits in the upper third of the image frame. Avoid placing busy detail behind rules text. If the art is dark, lighten the text box; if it is light, darken it. A subtle gradient or scrim can save a layout without dulling the image. Art should support the text, not compete with it. Test your card in greyscale. If the art and text merge into mud, adjust contrast. Full-bleed art with an overlaid text box can work beautifully, but only when the text has a solid anchor.

Rules Text That Breathes

Rules text is where readability is won or lost. On a standard poker card (63 x 88 mm), keep body text between 9 and 11 points. Leading should be 1.2 to 1.4 times the font size. Line length matters more than you think: aim for 30 to 40 characters per line. Full-width lines on a small card force the eye to track too far. Use short paragraphs, bullet points for multiple effects, and bold keywords such as "Once per turn" or "Reaction". Separate flavour text with italics and a smaller size. Left-align your text — justified text creates uneven word spacing that slows reading. Give the text box at least 3mm of internal padding so words never touch the frame.

• Use a sans-serif typeface for rules text; save the fancy display font for the title.
• Break long effects into two or three short lines rather than one dense block.
• Bold the trigger and the outcome, not the whole sentence.

Icons, Symbols and Colour Coding

Icons must be recognisable at a glance. Design them with distinct silhouettes, consistent stroke weights and high contrast. Do not rely on colour alone — roughly one in twelve men has some form of colour blindness. Use redundant cues: shape plus colour plus position. Place icons in fixed corners: cost top-right, type top-left under the title, set symbol bottom-centre. A consistent grid across every card means players learn where to look without thinking. Print a test sheet at 50% scale and squint. If you cannot tell a sword from a shield, redraw. An icon that needs a caption has failed.

Testing Your Layout with Real Hands

No layout survives first contact with players. Print prototypes, sleeve them, and play. Try the fan test: hold five cards like a hand and see if you can read every title and cost without moving them. Try the squint test: blur your eyes and note what remains visible. Hand the deck to someone else and time how long it takes them to find a specific card. Watch where their eyes travel. Make small changes — a 1mm shift in the text box, a 10% increase in icon size — and test again. Keep a layout grid and document your decisions. Good readability is not a matter of taste; it is a matter of evidence.