How To Design Your Own Deck of Playing Cards

Q: What size should my custom playing cards be?

The two most common playing card sizes are Poker (2.5 by 3.5 inches, or 64mm by 89mm) and Bridge (2.25 by 3.5 inches, or 57mm by 89mm). Poker size is the more familiar option for most players and magicians and is the standard for casino-style decks, while Bridge is slightly narrower and more common in card game circles. If you are designing for magicians or a general audience, Poker size is usually the safer choice.

Q: How much cutting tolerance do playing card printers allow?

The United States Playing Card Company allows an acceptable cutting shift of about 3/64 inch (roughly 1.19mm) before a deck is considered out of tolerance and should be rejected. This matters enormously for borderless designs with edge markings, since any artwork placed near the edge needs enough buffer to remain visible even at the worst-case cutting shift in either direction.

Q: What is a stripper deck cut and why does it matter for card design?

A stripper deck is cut with a slight taper so the cards are very slightly narrower at one end than the other, allowing a card to be located by feel. USPCC's standard stripper cut is about 1/32 inch (0.79mm) of taper. If you want your design to still work as a stripper deck, or simply to survive being cut into one later, you need to build extra margin into your artwork so nothing critical gets trimmed away by the taper.

Q: What card stock and finish should I use for a custom deck?

USPCC offers a standard stock, used in classic Bicycle Rider Back decks, and a premium stock, used in Bee Casino decks, which is thicker and more durable. Both can optionally be thin-crushed for a smoother, more flexible feel that is popular for faro shuffling, though crushing requires a larger minimum order. Finish options are typically the textured embossed finish (also called Air Cushion, Cambric, Linen or Magic finish) or a smooth Ivory finish, which cannot be thin-crushed.

Q: What is the difference between USPCC and MakePlayingCards.com for custom decks?

USPCC (the maker of Bicycle brand cards) offers a smaller, more curated set of stock and finish options and requires a 2,500 deck minimum. MakePlayingCards.com offers more stock and finish combinations and is a common choice for prototyping smaller runs before committing to a larger USPCC print order. Card cut orientation also differs by default between the two, though it can usually be swapped by rearranging your face and back files.

Q: Can I put the Bicycle brand on my own custom playing card deck?

Yes, but it requires special permission from The United States Playing Card Company along with an additional licensing cost, and specific legally required wording must be printed on the tuck box, typically on the bottom panel and inside the flap. Without that permission and language, a deck cannot legally carry Bicycle branding.

Peter X on September 12th 2026

So you want to design your own deck of playing cards. Maybe you sketched something on a napkin at midnight after a gig. Or maybe you have a "genius" idea for a marked deck that no spectator will ever spot. Whatever got you here, welcome. I have bad news and good news.

The bad news: printing a deck of cards is not "upload a JPEG and wait for a truck." There are dimensions, tolerances, stocks, finishes, cuts and a small mountain of decisions that decide whether your deck feels like a dream in the hands or fights you every single shuffle.

The good news: I already made every single mistake for you. Nine years ago I set out to design what became the Bicycle Invoked Playing Cards, a borderless, edge-marked deck that had to survive real world card handling, real world quality control tolerances, and real world magicians trying to catch me out. Along the way I learned more about paper stock, cutting tolerances and printing than any sane person should know. Here is everything I wish someone had told me before I started.

Step One: Pick a Card Size

Before a single pixel gets designed, you need to decide how big your cards will be. There are several sizes of playing cards out there, but two dominate the market:

Poker — 2.5 inches by 3.5 inches (64mm x 89mm)
Bridge — 2.25 inches by 3.5 inches (57mm x 89mm)

Poker size is the one most people picture when they think "deck of cards." It is what casinos use, it is what most magic decks use, and it is what I chose for the Invoked Deck, since the goal was a borderless, casino-style look that felt instantly familiar in the hands.

This decision seems small. It is not small. Every measurement that follows is built on top of it.

The Tolerance Problem Nobody Warns You About

Here is the plot twist that catches every first-time deck designer off guard: printers do not cut with laser-guided perfection. There is wiggle room, and that wiggle room is called cutting tolerance.

With a traditional bordered deck this is a non-issue. There is a nice forgiving white or colored border on the back design that quietly absorbs any shift in the cut. Nobody notices if the border is 1mm wider on one side.

But my design was borderless, with markings running right out to the edge. If the cut shifted even slightly, my markings could shift right along with it, or worse, get trimmed off entirely. So I called The United States Playing Card Company (USPCC) directly and asked about their cutting tolerances. Their answer: an acceptable shift of about 3/64 inch (1.19mm), and anything beyond that should be rejected by quality control.

I designed around the worst-case version of that number, not the best-case one. If your artwork only looks correct when the cut is perfect, your artwork is not ready to print.

Designing for a Stripper Cut (Optional)

There is another optional cut you need to think about: the stripper cut. This is a deliberate taper, where the bottom of the card is trimmed very slightly narrower than the top, allowing a card to be located purely by feel.

USPCC's standard stripper cut is about 1/32 inch (0.79mm) of taper. I wanted my design to still function correctly even if someone had it cut into a stripper deck later, so I built that taper into my safety margins from the start. In the end, I allowed 3mm of extra buffer on both sides of my edge marks, which meant the markings stayed fully visible even under the worst-case combination of cutting shift and stripper taper. Anything worse than that should, in theory, never leave the factory.

Card Stock and Finish: More Options Than You Think

This is where things start to feel like a very nerdy wine list. USPCC offers a standard stock, the same stock used in classic Bicycle Rider Back decks, and a premium stock, used in the Bee Casino line, which is a little thicker and noticeably more durable. There is also the option to thin-crush the stock, making it thinner, denser, and much easier to faro shuffle. It costs more, but I believe it is worth the extra price.

For the Invoked Deck I went with Premium, thin-crushed stock, since it gave the smoothest handling and the best durability for something meant to be shuffled thousands of times in front of skeptical spectators.

Then there is finish. The standard option is an embossed texture, sometimes marketed under different names like Air Cushion, Cambric, Linen or Magic finish, but they all mean the same thing. The alternative is a smooth Ivory finish, which costs more and, more importantly, cannot be thin-crushed.

Finally, there is cut direction: face-to-back (traditional) or back-to-face (modern). This changes which side of the card ends up with a flat edge versus a slightly rounded one, and it genuinely affects how the deck performs during a table faro. Traditional cut is the more popular choice among magicians for exactly that reason.

If you print through MakePlayingCards.com, their default is traditional cut too, though you can flip to modern simply by swapping your face and back files during upload. Their finish options are listed here. My preferred option is their M31 stock with the MPC Game Card Finish. Also note that when you print a few decks with MPC, they use digital printing which is not as robust as press printing and hence you'll see the paint chip away with time.

Gilding: A Beautiful Feature With an Ugly Catch

Deck gilding, the process of applying a thin foil layer to the edges of the deck, sounds like a purely aesthetic upgrade. For a borderless deck, it comes with a catch. USPCC cannot gild borderless decks, because the gilding process involves sanding the edges before applying the foil, and that sanding will chip the paint right off a borderless design.

MakePlayingCards.com, on the other hand, was able to gild my borderless prototypes without issue, at least at the smaller quantities I tested. If gilding matters to your design, this is worth knowing before you commit to a manufacturer.

Using "Bicycle" on Your Deck

If you want your deck to carry the Bicycle® name, you cannot simply print it on and call it a day. Using that branding requires special permission from USPCC, an additional licensing cost, and specific legal wording that must appear on the tuck box, usually on the bottom panel and inside the flap. You can see exactly how that mandatory language looks in practice on the Bicycle Invoked tuck box. Skip this step if you are not making a Bicycle deck.

What All of This Actually Looked Like in Practice

If you want to see where all of these decisions land once they are actually printed, the Bicycle Invoked Playing Cards are the Poker-sized, Premium thin-crushed, Air Cushion finish, traditionally cut, borderless deck that came out of this entire process. There is also a stripper deck version, built specifically to survive that 1/32 inch taper cleanly.

For anyone curious what the design process actually looked like from the inside, the Collector Box includes four different prototype decks that trace the entire evolution of the design, including a silver gilded prototype and a booklet walking through the full journey. And if you just want to see the raw sheet before it was ever cut into individual cards, there is an uncut sheet of the exact same design.

The Short Version

Designing your own deck of cards means making deliberate decisions about size, cutting tolerance, stripper taper, stock, finish, cut direction, gilding and branding, and then designing your artwork around the worst-case version of every single one of those variables, not the best-case one. Get that part right and everything else, the fun part, the actual design, gets to shine the way it is supposed to.

Still have questions about tolerances, stock, or getting your own deck off the ground? I've been down this rabbit hole more times than I can count, and I genuinely enjoy talking shop. Reach out here and I'll be more than happy to help!

Frequently Asked Questions

What size should my custom playing cards be?

The two most common sizes are Poker (2.5 by 3.5 inches, or 64mm by 89mm) and Bridge (2.25 by 3.5 inches, or 57mm by 89mm). Poker size is the more familiar option for magicians and general audiences and is what casino-style decks use.

How much cutting tolerance do playing card printers allow?

USPCC's acceptable cutting shift is about 3/64 inch (roughly 1.19mm) before a deck should be rejected by quality control. Borderless designs with edge markings need extra buffer built in to stay visible even at that worst-case shift.

What is a stripper deck cut and why does it matter for card design?

A stripper deck has a slight intentional taper, about 1/32 inch (0.79mm) at USPCC, so a card can be located by feel. If you want your design to survive being cut this way, you need extra margin built into your artwork so nothing important gets trimmed off.

What card stock and finish should I use for a custom deck?

USPCC offers a standard stock and a thicker, more durable premium stock, both of which can optionally be thin-crushed for a smoother, more flexible feel popular with faro shufflers. Finish options are typically embossed (Air Cushion, Cambric, Linen or Magic finish) or a smooth Ivory finish, which cannot be thin-crushed.

What is the difference between USPCC and MakePlayingCards.com for custom decks?

USPCC offers a more curated set of stock and finish options with a 2,500 deck minimum, while MakePlayingCards.com offers more combinations and is commonly used for prototyping smaller runs before a larger USPCC order.

Can I put the Bicycle brand on my own custom playing card deck?

Yes, but only with special permission and an additional licensing cost from The United States Playing Card Company, plus specific required legal wording printed on the tuck box.

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