OK, so here is one of my designs for the DDDC. I must warn you, This will be a long post, but I'll do my very best to keep it as short as possible. This is a tale about what not to do when designing a deck.
It was some years ago, when I bought my first decks from Ellusionist. I liked the Artifice and the Infinity decks, but the standard Bicycles I had really never been very fond of. Remember, I live in a country where most decks look like this:
http://www.wopc.co.uk/sweden/standard.htmlI was quite perplexed when I later found out that I could actually have my own design printed on a deck of playing cards. I researched this for some time, and so, one particularly rainy day in September, I set out to create my own set of cards.
From the beginning I wanted them to have the Swedish design, with the colorcoded suits and the more clothing-like bodies, but in the style of the standard Bicycle design. That idea failed before even hitting the preliminary-sketch stage. I realised that my ability to draw on the computer wasn't quite up to par for a project of that magnitude. Thus I abandoned the suits for now, and decided to work on the pips instead, I am kind of fond of pips, I like the simplicity of the shapes.
I wanted the basic shape intact but with a more "flowing" feeling, and thus, I came up with this:
I am rather pleased with them.
On to the font, I first tried to edit the standard font but then opted for the Birch std font,
allthough I might have to change that, since I've seen at least two other decks with that font recently.
It was at this point in time I somehow thought that I had enough of cool designs to send it to Ellusionist as a design for a deck... Oh, how naive can you be? I hope that they never saw it.
Feeling stuck, I abandoned the project and went on to design the X-ray deck:
http://www.playingcardforum.com/design-development/x-ray-deck/msg67306/#msg67306Almost six months later I was ready to look at my failed attempt again. This time I changed direction regarding the court design. Knowing my weaknesses, I opted to use the standard courts design but simplify it to only use two printed colors, yet keeping it fairly interesting. After some fiddling with colors, this is what I came up with:
See that ace of spades? It looks like that because of the back. Ah, the back...The beginning of the end.
I began fiddling with the back and ace of spades after the courts were finished. I like the back and ace to have a unified design, so that one can see that the ace and back is from the same deck, don't ask me why because I really don't know, I just do.
I downloaded some free ornaments and stuff from the net and began fiddling with them to create a back and ace. I mean, how hard can it be? Smack on some nice stock design and you're done... So I did several different versions, some of which I kinda liked... And then someone here on this forum mentioned that stock designs looks sooo merz67... I quietly disregarded these designs and set out to create my own back and ace. Looking back, I'm glad I saw that line about stock designs, because truth be told, they didn't look all that great. I won't bore you with those designs unless you really want to see them.
However I will show you my first attempt at my own back design:
I tried to get in some of the flowing style from the pips.
Suddenly, I got stuck, I felt as if I had no real vision, no aim, with this design.There was nothing in my mind that had to be spilled onto the paper, It was a cold, desolate place. A chilly wind howled through the empty chambers. Frustrated, I looked around me at the desk, and spotted, out of the corner of my eye, an old cigarette box, Halpaus Privileg, Halpaus cigaretten fabrik, Breslau u Köln, that I had gotten from my father in law, many years ago. (Hmmm, I have to check if there is some copyright issues with that box.) It was an interesting design that I tried to mimic, but failed miserably, thus I resorted to take some photographs of it and cleaning the pics up and trying to get it symmetrical.
This is the end result:
There, I was finished!
I was just about to post it to the forums when someone mentioned that a deck design should have a strong theme to stand a chance today... A theme??? What the bleeping bleep in the bleep with a bleep??? I looked at my design, there was, of course, no theme in sight.
But as I sat there, dreary with the impending doom looming overhead, I noticed that the more I looked at the back, the more, in my state of utter despair, it looked like some kind of whirlwind or maelstrom, dragging me down into the depths of lunacy, down, in a sea of madness.
I came to some time later, my clothes in rags, clawmarks on my chest, and on the screen before me, in bright shining images, were this:
and this:
Ouch, that box lost some stuff in translation, and I need to learn how to do to get that box to look like a box.
Anyway, I need some help here, so if anyone can provide any advice, please do.
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