Decks range from old wood carved ink representations to modern realistic new age decks. There are decks that focus on different animals, angels, mythical creatures, and many different cultures and religions. Some cards are designed to offer insight to material life while others like Zen cards are more focused on spiritual and self-growth concerns. When starting out a tarot reader will usually begin with learning and interpreting the Major Arcana first. As those skills are honed the Minor Arcana cards will be added in.
Interpretation is individual to the deck used and the reader.
The layout used by the Reader is almost as varied as the desks. Some Readers will ask that you shuffle the deck, other will want you to cut the deck, some will not ever have you touch their cards. Then the lay-out itself is vastly different. If you want an answer to a specific question they may use one, three, or five cards in a row or do the common Celtic Cross lay-out. Again, the lay-out is an individual as the interpretations, and the vast variety of tarot cards used.