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Playing Card Chat ♠ ♥ ♣ ♦ => Design & Development => Topic started by: Skyvora on August 11, 2015, 04:05:51 PM
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Introducing the Skyvora High Grade Playing Cards! My name is Josh and I am the artist and owner of the company Skyvora. I have created a series of marijuana-themed playing cards for the card collectors, cardists, magicians and stoners. Each face card has been illustrated from scratch and depicts a representation of a cannabis strain.
The cards have been getting a lot of positive feedback on our instagram page www.instagram.com/skyvora. We will be launching a kickstarter campaign soon to get the cards produced. To make things simple we will only have playing cards and uncut sheets as rewards for kickstarter contributions. Items such as t-shirts and posters are already available on our website www.skyvora.com. All of the graphics for the cards are finished. Make Playing Card Company will be doing the printing and fulfillment of the cards once the kickstarter campaign is complete.
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Here are some designs for the diamonds suit
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Introducing the Skyvora High Grade Playing Cards! My name is Josh and I am the artist and owner of the company Skyvora. I have created a series of marijuana-themed playing cards for the card collectors, cardists, magicians and stoners. Each face card has been illustrated from scratch and depicts a representation of a cannabis strain.
The cards have been getting a lot of positive feedback on our instagram page www.instagram.com/skyvora. We will be launching a kickstarter campaign soon to get the cards produced. To make things simple we will only have playing cards and uncut sheets as rewards for kickstarter contributions. Items such as t-shirts and posters are already available on our website www.skyvora.com. All of the graphics for the cards are finished. Make Playing Card Company will be doing the printing and fulfillment of the cards once the kickstarter campaign is complete.
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Diamonds Suit Designs
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Diamonds Suit
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Each face card has been illustrated from scratch and depicts a representation of a cannabis strain.
Represented by chicks with big boobs?
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All of the diamonds cards have guns
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Each face card has been illustrated from scratch and depicts a representation of a cannabis strain.
Represented by chicks with big boobs?
Absolutely
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Clubs suit for the Skyvora High Grade Playing Cards
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OK, a few things, Josh.
I merged your topics. You get a topic in Design/Dev for a new deck not yet in release. You get a new topic in the Plethora when the deck is either released or launched on Kickstarter.
Go easy on the hard sell. It doesn't win fans around here, especially if the design doesn't live up to the hype.
If you expect to charge top dollar for your design, you'll need a better printer than MPC. They're good, but they're not that good. Plus with a deck as dark as this, it's gonna look like mud - they tend to reproduce colors darker than they appear on screen. In fact, your whole design is so low in contrast, you'll be lucky if any printer can accurately reproduce the art. You should really rework the art for better contrast. It might look really cool on the screen right now, but your customers won't be seeing it on your screen - they'll be seeing it on little pieces of paper in their hands. Put all that ink on this little pasteboards, your art's going to disappear in a blob of dark gray and black.
Your irregular pattern printed into the bleed will be very difficult to die-cut accurately enough to prevent creating a one-way back design. Poker players, even casual poker players, stay away from one-way designs because they can be used for cheating.
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Thank you for the feedback Don. I am ordering a test print of the cards from MPC and I will make contrast edits accordingly. If our kickstarter campaign receives enough backing we will get USPCC to do the printing. If there are any other printing companies you would recommend we will be sure to check them out. Thanks for the help
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Clubs Suit Designs
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Thank you for the feedback Don. I am ordering a test print of the cards from MPC and I will make contrast edits accordingly. If our kickstarter campaign receives enough backing we will get USPCC to do the printing. If there are any other printing companies you would recommend we will be sure to check them out. Thanks for the help
Both the Legends Playing Card Company and the Expert Playing Card Company do excellent work and at a lower cost than USPC, plus they allow much lower minimum print run sizes than USPC does. Both companies have a company topic here on the boards as well as a PCF Agent account, though if placing an order, it's probably best to do it from their own websites.
legendsplayingcards.com
expertplayingcard.com
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A note about the design, having the brand name "Skyvora" on every court card seems a bit much for me. Makes it look like an advertising deck for a gentlemans club.
I think the brand name could be just on the tuck and the AoS.
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Thank you for the info Don we're about to look into those companies now. Greatly appreciate the recommendations and advice! Thanks Magasaki for your input. This is the first edition of the cards and we are a new brand. The repetition of the word Skyvora on the court cards is redundant but we feel that it could only help in building brand recognition. The future editions of the playing cards may have the word "Skyvora" omitted from the court cards. Thanks for sharing your thoughts
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All of the Clubs cards have alcohol
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Thank you for the info Don we're about to look into those companies now. Greatly appreciate the recommendations and advice! Thanks Magasaki for your input. This is the first edition of the cards and we are a new brand. The repetition of the word Skyvora on the court cards is redundant but we feel that it could only help in building brand recognition. The future editions of the playing cards may have the word "Skyvora" omitted from the court cards. Thanks for sharing your thoughts
I'm wondering if the advice we're offering is just going in one ear and out the other. I consult with playing card designers, helping them improve their work - all I've seen so far is you pushing the same design format, essentially unchanged from suit to suit in terms of overall appearance. Hard sells don't work well with card collectors - they tend to backfire more often than not.
It won't help with the brand recognition if people think the cards are less attractive for it... That's not the kind of name brand recognition you want - recognizing that you DON'T want that brand! Even advertising decks of cards for major name brands like Absolut or Coca-Cola don't display the product name on every single card - it appears as a logo in the card back design and on the tuck box, and that's it in most cases. It looks as if you're making an advertising deck to advertise that you're making playing cards - a little on the redundant side, don't you think? Or are you really advertising your nationally-renown brand of cannabis? Just keep the brand name on the Ace of Spades and the box - if it's good enough for most other playing card companies, why not give it a try? USPC's been doing it for over 130 years now - if it wasn't working, they would have stopped (or gone out of business) a long time ago...
It's a big mistake to place images of alcohol on your cards. There are places that specifically prohibit minors from purchasing products with alcohol imagery. There are also places that prohibit minors from accessing products with cannabis imagery as well, but that's like saying, "Well, we've already got two strikes against us - let's get another just because we can!" It's not good for business to intentionally limit the audience for your product any more than is absolutely necessary.
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Considering that the name is on the back of the cards, we agree that removing the name the brand name "Skyvora" from the court cards is the right move. That edit would also allow make room for larger illustrations. The alcohol will remain in the artwork. We are aware that some places would prohibit the cards, but alcohol is prevalent in the niche we are targeting.
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Good move on letting go of the branding on the card faces. It was really detracting from the overall look listening to the audience you're aiming at is always a good move. You'll likely get more sales from the playing card collector group than the pot-smoking group - after all they've spent all their money on weed ;)
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Thanks for the recommendation Magasaki. You make some good points. I've deleted the name from the court card designs. I'm open to more suggestions and advice thanks for your help.
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Hearts Cards designs
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Ace of Hearts
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King of Hearts
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Jamaican Queen
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Jack of Hearts
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Hearts Suit
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OK, I think I've reached my limit...
Skyvora, I respectfully request that you make a single post with all of your card images and STOP SPAMMING the forum. You've made seven consecutive posts without a single reply until now. Of the twenty posts you've made in the fifteen days since you joined, all have been in your own topics promoting your deck of cards. It's very clear that your purpose isn't to become a member of the community, or you would have bothered reading and posting elsewhere on our boards. As a community, we do not generally appreciate such heavy-handed advertising tactics.
We get it - you want to sell your cards and are seeking an audience. You're not the first new artist we've seen eager to sell their deck design to prospective buyers. But if you're getting no other posting activity for a number of days, there's usually a reason - there's not enough interest on this forum. Pop in maybe twice a week and advertise - or better yet, be a member, read other topics, offer comments, and then we might not mind the advertising so much. But otherwise, your time spent promoting to an near-empty audience here might be better spent promoting in front of a receptive audience elsewhere who share your interests and better appreciate your design.
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Lol get 'em Don.
Serious question,
How capable is MPC to produce the watermark style artwork in the background like USPC does?
I personally love seeing it in cards but most of the cards that have it have been a white shade for the face. I agree with some of the earlier posts, It would look muggy i think.
I wonder if USPCC or EPCC could do black face watermarking... that'd be cool to see.
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Lol get 'em Don.
Serious question,
How capable is MPC to produce the watermark style artwork in the background like USPC does?
I personally love seeing it in cards but most of the cards that have it have been a white shade for the face. I agree with some of the earlier posts, It would look muggy i think.
I wonder if USPCC or EPCC could do black face watermarking... that'd be cool to see.
In general, MPC's print quality is improved but still a bit flawed for high-quality work. To the best of my knowledge, they use a digital printing press (no printing plates, like an oversized version of the one sitting on your desk) and the process tends to make art a bit darker than how it looks on your screen.
I would inquire with Expert PCC and Legends PCC. They can do high-quality work, are very competitive on price with USPC and offer shorter print runs than USPC. USPC has a minimum of 2,500 decks, Expert's is 1,000 and Legends is 900.
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I got in touch with Expert Playing Company earlier this week. Very impressed by their work the cards they produce look magnificent. If the project reaches high enough funding I'll definitely be switching from MPC to EPCC. I want the cards to be of the highest quality possible. I'll will make the necessary contrast adjustments to the watermark background once the printer is determined. The deck is launching today at 4:20pm Eastern Time. Thanks for all of your feedback
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Thanks for all the feedback everyone
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I got in touch with Expert Playing Company earlier this week. Very impressed by their work the cards they produce look magnificent. If the project reaches high enough funding I'll definitely be switching from MPC to EPCC. I want the cards to be of the highest quality possible. I'll will make the necessary contrast adjustments to the watermark background once the printer is determined. The deck is launching today at 4:20pm Eastern Time. Thanks for all of your feedback
If you have possible plans to switch printers, check with that other printer (in this case, Expert PCC) first as to what schedule they're on. It's possible that they might have a longer backlog than MPC, resulting in a delay on your project's delivery date. Whichever company has the longer delivery period, that's the estimate you give (with a small margin for error) as your delivery date. Or at least that's what you should have done before launching...