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Why borders?

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Why borders?
« on: October 11, 2011, 05:47:30 PM »
 

Kanped

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I've been wondering for a while why magicians prefer cards with borders?  Surely, they don't look as good in fans and aren't as good at concealing moves?  So, what's the upside?
 

Re: Why borders?
« Reply #1 on: October 11, 2011, 05:49:52 PM »
 

Evan

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Actually some people prefer borders for fans.
 

Re: Why borders?
« Reply #2 on: October 11, 2011, 06:03:30 PM »
 

xela

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So let's discuss this from three point of views: The magician, the designer, and the printer.

The magician prefers a bordered deck because of the concept of reversals. Take a card, flip it upside down in a deck, and act like all your cards are facing the same way. This idea is the driving force behind hundreds of tricks. Yes, most of these tricks are the simpler, beginner tricks, but how many professional magicians are there? Far from enough to fund any company, which I would argue makes a vast majority of their money from regular people who don't to magic full-time for a living.

The designer is different. When I was making the Vortex deck, I had a million ideas I could accomplish with borders. The common problems are the constraints of a card. First of all, it has to be two-way. This means that I am essentially only designing half of something and then mirroring it (there is more to it than that, but that is the basic concept). Within these constraints, it is very tempting to not include a border because it allows your design to grow. No border gives you freedom to do more with your concept. However, no border also means no closure to your art. It is like a picture without a frame. When I finish designing something, I always get the need to encapsulate it in something, to keep is separate from its surroundings. This is where the fun begins, because with some creativity, a border allows you to create unique depth-of-field effects on the cards. When you hold the Vortex in your hands, the border will add a unique level of depth that was nonexistent before I added it. Of course, a unique, thin, and dynamic border makes fans look more beautiful than a solid color, but I'll get to that in a second.

The printer hates unbordered cards. Why? Well if your design extends to the edges of the deck, it's extremely difficult to print centered. The USPCC backs vary in position by 1/32 of an inch in any direction. This means it is impossible to print a one-way unbordered back. What does this mean for fans? It means that after you shuffle the cards a few times, you can no longer execute a beautiful fan. Instead, the fans look messy and cluttered.

If you have a deck of Texan Palmettos, Steamboats or Stickman cards you will know exactly what I mean. Unless you make every card face the same direction, your fans will look ugly. What's worse is when all cards but one face the same direction, your fans look silly.

The Artifice "v1" deck is actually a bordered deck. The border is black, and the faces are which, which is what makes reversals impossible.
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Re: Why borders?
« Reply #3 on: October 11, 2011, 06:28:34 PM »
 

Kanped

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Interesting.  However, in regards to magicians, wouldn't the borders need to be very off-centre for that effect to work?  Any of the higher quality decks I have, the borders seem very close to, or exaclty on the centre.

EDIT; Oh, I get what you mean now.  I thought you were saying badly printed borders could be a ghetto 1-way back.  I guess they could be.

I never noticed before but the designs that don't have borders are almost always a single repeated pattern; the Streamboats, Bees and Smith-backs all fall under that category (there's some exceptions of course).  I see what you mean about 'framing' the art; potentially infinite designs don't need that.

As I say, very interesting stuff.  Thanks.
« Last Edit: October 11, 2011, 07:50:23 PM by Kanped »
 

Re: Why borders?
« Reply #4 on: October 11, 2011, 06:30:56 PM »
 

VortexHead

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Alex got you covered I think, good info.
UC
 

Re: Why borders?
« Reply #5 on: October 11, 2011, 07:31:51 PM »
 

phantom1412

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Thanks for the grate info,
Now I'm thinking will there be a new deck with black boarder of both sides of the cards?
 

Re: Why borders?
« Reply #6 on: October 19, 2011, 10:11:48 AM »
 

Jin Jian

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Thanks for the great information alex but i think that the artifice v2 suck i prefer V1 anyone think that way?
 

Re: Why borders?
« Reply #7 on: October 19, 2011, 11:07:14 AM »
 

Curt


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Thanks for the great information alex but i think that the artifice v2 suck i prefer V1 anyone think that way?

We have a thread about that exact topic here

http://aethercards.com/discourse/index.php?topic=5.0
 

Re: Why borders?
« Reply #8 on: October 19, 2011, 11:36:51 AM »
 

Jin Jian

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We have a thread about that exact topic here

http://aethercards.com/discourse/index.php?topic=5.0
Thanks for the information about the decks