Not really sure where to put this, but I have a couple of nomenclature questions.
A friend of mine today asked me if there was a name for a deck (similar to the ones on the “Card Sharks” reboot on ABC) in which the spades and clubs are blue in color instead of black. I couldn’t answer him, so I came here.
Similarly, is there a name for a deck in which the face cards have the same art across ranks, or in which they are recolored versions of the same base art? I submit as an example the Saks Fifth Avenue Art Deco-era cards.
To my knowledge, there is no unique name for a two-color, four-suited deck where the suit colors aren't the traditional red and black. The closest thing there is would be a "no-revoke" deck, but that's not the same thing - it's a deck where each suit has a unique color, thus preventing someone from mis-bidding in a game such as bridge by confusing the two same-colored suits for each other. It's also found in some decks with a "low-vision" design, often with super-large indices that may take up an entire card's face - it's for people with poor eyesight who are having a tougher time telling suits apart.
Now, as far as a deck whereby the court ranks from suit to suit are nearly identical, with only color changes or minor art tweaks separating them but they're still made from the same base design, the only term I've ever heard for that is "lazy!" Some might refer to a deck in general as being "minimally customized," in that it's not the basic, standard faces, but it's not terribly creative, either, using art that gets "recycled" between the suits or being only minimally different from the completely standard faces used by the same printer. There may even be a re-use of a deck's back design, perhaps with just a recoloring. A pretty good example of this would be many of the colored variants of the Bicycle Rider Back that have come out over the years, particularly those made for magic companies like Magic Makers - in such cases, it's only the colors that are different - the art, both faces and backs, is 100% exactly as it appears on standard decks, save for printing gaff cards instead of ad cards.
This kind of lack of originality in court card art is, to me, usually done just for the sake of saving time or cost, and the result is never as attractive as a deck whereby the artist took the effort to make each court card's art unique. At one time, not that long ago, such decks would have been considered OK, but in a market where there's so much new, original work being created and produced, you really can't get away with it as easily without being thought of as lazy.
