Mainly as a result of discussions at the CardStock meetups, along with Nick Kellet’s release of the Deckible platform, and a couple of projects I’m working on, I got to wondering what makes a card deck recognisable as a typical deck of cards, rather than something else?

So…

What makes a card deck a card deck?

In no particular order…

• Cards are two dimensional
• Viewable areas are single or double sided only
• All cards within a deck are the same shape
• All cards within a deck have the same finish
• All cards are flat
• All cards are solid
• Cards are intended to be handled
• Cards are opaque
• Cards are of sufficient size to be handled comfortably by humans
• Detail on the cards can be read unaided
• The cards’ shape is symmetrical
• Cards are divided into suits
• Each card is individual, and are not duplicated within the deck ( arguably, what about Uno? )
• Cards are made of paper or a paper-like material
• Cards have the same style of design throughout a deck
• Decks contain approximately fifty cards
• Corners are rounded, mostly
• The back is usually different to the front
• They can be shuffled
• They can be dealt
• Cards are interacted with through visual and tactile stimuli only

What did I miss?

Should I start a list of notable exceptions?