Author (Read 8788 times)

S. Carey · « **on:** June 18, 2013, 11:16:29 AM »

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/72004666/empire-playing-cards-built-to-conquer

Arcane and Infinity designer Lee McKenzie's new solo project.

More info:

http://tuckcase.com/2013/06/18/kickstarter-project-ellusionist-designer-lee-mckenzie-goes-solo-with-empire-playing-cards/

Paul Carpenter · « **Reply #1 on:** June 18, 2013, 01:31:56 PM »

That's a nice deck. He certainly has a style (in that this looks a lot like many of the Ellusionist decks) but it still looks pretty amazing. I backed for a pair.

MrMollusk · « **Reply #2 on:** June 18, 2013, 02:18:15 PM »

Pure, undiluted, awesomeness.
It's rare that we get a deck on Kickstarter that has a completely knock-out design. (*cough* Federal 52 *cough*) In my opinion, this deck is extremely well designed. The back is cool, the jokers have an awesome reveal, and the pips are very nice.

Although... why is the project in pounds? US shipping is included, and they're being printed by the USPCC. It's odd he would choose a currency that's rarely had a card project in it funded. All means of practicality point to dollars.

Alex Willis · « **Reply #3 on:** June 18, 2013, 03:36:53 PM »

I love the art and design, but $15US a deck is a bit steep for me. Also, because it's in pounds, I have to use a credit card instead of Amazon Payments, I'm not too keen of putting my credit card out there. I don't understand why it would not be the same as US projects. I did mark it as I'll probably break down and buy a couple of decks.

Paul Carpenter · « **Reply #4 on:** June 18, 2013, 04:53:05 PM »

The creator is from the UK, and I imagine there are some rules about having a project originate in the country you live in. Kickstarter is only available in a few countries and you can't live in, say, Uzbekistan and just say that you are from the US.

Henceforthly, we have to pay in the ol' pounds sterling.

Lotrek · « **Reply #5 on:** June 18, 2013, 05:35:56 PM »

It's certainly well designed but isn't it a bit Federal 52-ish?

10ofclubs · « **Reply #6 on:** June 18, 2013, 07:24:55 PM »

I think it's absolutely lovely and really hope it gets funded.

Lee McKenzie · « **Reply #7 on:** June 18, 2013, 09:02:41 PM »

Lee here from the Empire deck, thanks for the kind words guys!

It's taken me a year to get this out on Kickstarter and it was my every intention to make it as easy as possible for US backers. Unfortunately, Kickstarter only lets US and UK folk create projects. Being from the UK, I had no option but to create theproject in UK Pounds only. However, in spite of that handicap, I've still tried to the make it as easy as possible by arranging US shipping to be included with every pledge. Otherwise you guys would be in the international side of things and shipping gets more uncomfortable.

I hope that this won't put people off but I can see that it may have already had an effect. Regarding the price too, it's a very expensive deck to produce because of all the extra attention I wanted to put into it. I hope it's something you'd really be proud of, not just another deck. It also a limited run. With USPC and USPS upping rates this year, it all equals a little more to pay, but in return I hope to deliver a deck you'd be proud to have and worth every penny.

I hope that helps clears up some things for you guys. Thanks again for the support!

MrMollusk · « **Reply #8 on:** June 18, 2013, 09:40:28 PM »

Quote from: leemckenzie on June 18, 2013, 09:02:41 PM

Lee here from the Empire deck, thanks for the kind words guys!

It's taken me a year to get this out on Kickstarter and it was my every intention to make it as easy as possible for US backers. Unfortunately, Kickstarter only lets US and UK folk create projects. Being from the UK, I had no option but to create theproject in UK Pounds only. However, in spite of that handicap, I've still tried to the make it as easy as possible by arranging US shipping to be included with every pledge. Otherwise you guys would be in the international side of things and shipping gets more uncomfortable.

I hope that this won't put people off but I can see that it may have already had an effect. Regarding the price too, it's a very expensive deck to produce because of all the extra attention I wanted to put into it. I hope it's something you'd really be proud of, not just another deck. It also a limited run. With USPC and USPS upping rates this year, it all equals a little more to pay, but in return I hope to deliver a deck you'd be proud to have and worth every penny.

I hope that helps clears up some things for you guys. Thanks again for the support!

Thanks for stopping by!
I Just noticed that the banners on the edges and the court card's pips would be super revealing in a card game. While they'd look amazing in a fan, I could easily read if my opponent had a court card or if he was going for a flush in poker. Would it be possible to fade the banners away from the edges, just slightly, on the face of the cards?

Absolutely stunning deck, by the way!

Rob Wright · « **Reply #9 on:** June 18, 2013, 09:54:49 PM »

This is what custom cards should look like. One of the best I've seen on KS in a long time.

Bill Collins · « **Reply #10 on:** June 18, 2013, 10:17:26 PM »

The art in this deck, is the best I have seen in a long time. I would never play with this deck and try not to even breath on it. Don't care for the credit card thing, but I will be in for at least one.

Rob Wright · « **Reply #11 on:** June 18, 2013, 10:25:03 PM »

Quote from: Alex Willis on June 18, 2013, 03:36:53 PM

I love the art and design, but $15US a deck is a bit steep for me. Also, because it's in pounds, I have to use a credit card instead of Amazon Payments, I'm not too keen of putting my credit card out there. I don't understand why it would not be the same as US projects. I did mark it as I'll probably break down and buy a couple of decks.

I've not funded any of the UK based projects yet. I'll probably go for the 3 decks. If my math is right, should be just over $12 each that way.

agera94 · « **Reply #12 on:** June 18, 2013, 11:37:00 PM »

Very impressed with this KS; glad to see something true talent.

Card Player · « **Reply #13 on:** June 19, 2013, 05:17:50 AM »

Having collected decks for almost 3 years now, I have learned to put deck releases in three categories. Category one no-brainers, I have to have it. Category two, I'm willing to give it a try, I would use it. Category three, I have absolutely no interest, not even worth talking about. I put this deck in a category two. I would be willing to give it a try and back the project. However with so many category one deck's being released and with this hobby becoming more and more expensive, It becomes almost impossible to afford giving decks that I'm on the fence about funding.

Generally speaking, my biggest problem with the industry right now is that so many producers create new decks that are outside of the box, but they don't give new buyers opportunity to give it a try because of the high price points making it a financial risk. Then you add to the risk because many of the buyers already own dozens to hundreds of decks. In order to compete for this industry's market share, the deck production needs to factor one of two things. Either the design is going to be at the top of this industries spectrum or the price point is going to be reasonable enough to allow people to give it a try. That's sort of where I am right now regarding deck purchases.

Don Boyer · « **Reply #14 on:** June 19, 2013, 06:23:02 AM »

Lee, I'd like to personally welcome you to our humble forum! We love getting designers in to comment, especially ones of your caliber.

I think the artwork is great. It's reminiscent of the Infinity deck, but only in that it borrows some of the better elements in terms of the feel of the design - at least that's how it seems in my head. (Careful, peoiple have been known to get lost there from time to time...

)

MrMollusk makes an interesting point regarding the banners that you have at the edges of the backs and faces. While I see no problem with the side banners, they'll look great ONLY if USPC doesn't screw up the registration between the fronts and the backs - which they practically always do to some degree or another, which in your case depending on the severity of the error would render the banners visibly misaligned from front to back.

You run into a similar issues with the banners for the court card indices, with the additional complication that if you do that style of banner only for the indices of the courts, you'll give away the location of the courts just by looking at the top or bottom edge of the deck. On top of that, a flipped court card would really stand out (some magicians do tricks involving inverted cards in the middle of the pack, as I'm sure you're already aware).

I think the side banners will work, despite USPC's tendency to have trouble matching fronts and backs. I'd recommend, though, making them the same color for the faces and the backs (that inverted card issue applies to that as well). If you want to have banners on the indices, I'd suggest making them fade to white as you approach the card's edge rather than printing them into the bleed.

In fact, if you wanted to minimize any changes for improved function, all the elements I mentioned could remain pretty much as you created them if you fade the banners to white and you'd eliminate all the potential drawbacks. Fans would look a little different than they would now, but that might be for the better - you'd have to test them out and see what you think.

That's my two cents, of course - you're the experienced designer here, right?

I simply am a stickler for functional design in a deck, regardless of the application (magic, gaming, flourishing, house of cards, etc.), and I really like the artwork on your cards a great deal.

Lee McKenzie · « **Reply #15 on:** June 21, 2013, 08:16:04 PM »

Hey Don and everybody, thanks so much for all of your flattering comments and also raising a few important issues.

Firstly, the banners on the courts. You make a very good point in terms of being able to see a reversed card. I addressed it to a certain degree on the sides, but I'm going to take a closer look at those courts and may consider correcting that to make it more usable for magicians. Thanks for pointing it out Mr Mollusk!

I definitely want it to be absolutely functional. Thanks for raising such a constructive point.

If all goes well with Empire and we finally make it happen (which would be incredible!) I will be trying to keep in mind price points and aim to make more affordable and competitively priced decks in the future, whilst trying not to sacrifice impact. With Empire being my very first in the line, and a limited edition, I wanted to hold nothing back with it and create a really memorable deck for people. Unless you print a massive run at USPCC, the cost per deck is extremely high to make a deck like this.

Don, Bill, Rob, Agera, Mr Mollusk...thank you so much for your compliments! I am so happy that true card men like yourselves and others on this thread, appreciate the work I've done. After all, I created it for us, magicians, cardists and connoisseurs, so I appreciate your experienced feedback.

Best wishes!

Lee McKenzie · « **Reply #16 on:** June 21, 2013, 08:16:48 PM »

p.s. I seriously hope USPCC don't mess up the registration or there will be trouble!

Don Boyer · « **Reply #17 on:** June 21, 2013, 11:35:26 PM »

Quote from: leemckenzie on June 21, 2013, 08:16:48 PM

p.s. I seriously hope USPCC don't mess up the registration or there will be trouble!

For the side edges, I think you'll be OK. It worked out very well for the "Ornate" deck series from House of Playing Cards and Midnight Card Co. The designer, Randy Butterfield, is a contributing member of the community here, so you're likely to bump into him at some point! He did a very intricate border, and a thin one at that, on the faces and backs of the cards, as well as having a decorative piece in the middle of each side edge, also on both cards sides. They came out gorgeous, so USPC is definitely capable of doing an acceptable job of it.

It's those index banners that concern me! Even without thinking in terms of an inverted card, you'd be able to spot all the courts in a face-up deck made exactly that way just by glancing at the edge of the deck from any angle above the plane just by noticing the cards that were printed into the bleed at the index - and when the deck is face down, you just need to look from below the plane. Bicycle made this mistake on some of the fashion-colored decks - they painted the entire face on one deck pink for the red suits and purple for the black suits, allowing you to spot immediately whether a card was red or black from the edge - and you could tell immediately when the deck had been sorted by suit or color just by looking for the large bunchings of pink and purple on the edge. I know that I posted somewhere on this board photos of that deck and how it appears from the edge - it's really easy to spot, I tell you.

For inverted cards, well - if you see an index banner on the "off-corner", you know it's an inverted court card...

Well, I think I've flogged that horse to the point of no return! But it does appear that you understand the point, and that's a good thing.

RandyButterfield · « **Reply #18 on:** June 22, 2013, 12:04:54 AM »

Thanks for the compliment Don!

Hey Lee, the Empire Deck is sweet!! I haven't had the chance to pledge, yet but will do so this weekend. If you're worried about the side edges and corners being noticeable between Red vs. Black, what about adding a 1/16" Subtle Black glow to throughout the Edges? It would make all of the side and corner edges consistent and also allow you to have the Hearts and Diamonds fade to Red inside the 1/16" margins.

Thanks, Randy

Lee McKenzie · « **Reply #19 on:** June 24, 2013, 01:59:18 PM »

Hey Randy thanks a lot for the comment! Great work on the Ornate decks..and thanks so much for backing it! Truly appreciated my man.

Cheers too Don, for the back up explanation

I love your love of the details!

Randy, about making the face cards edge details all black at the edges. When a card is reversed, then there would be a red edge among all of the blacks, making it obvious something is different. I hear you tho...

With regards to the courts too...I'm trying to get a moment to address that. Kickstarter is a full time job, 24/7!

If any of you guys who see it fit to help share this project with more magicians and card men across the world by any means, that would be incredible and something that would truly help me a great deal!

To get personal with you all for a second, it might have been a silly idea, but after seeing Tylers Pedale Design deck, and Fed 52, (great decks), both non-magic related, I thought that playing card guys and magicians who may have liked my previous work would really be happy to jump on Empire and help it be somewhat of a rival to those 2 decks. I don't have a huge network of people to call on, I've been very much behind the scenes at Ellusionist. I haven't wanted to expose myself as much over the years to avoid being found online easily (lets just say I don't know my father, nor want to). I guess I should have put myself out there a lot more.

It's been a very long time coming, and with the hiccups of a lot of US backers unwilling to enter card details to back me, I feel as though so because of that it will really hurt the growth of the project.

I'm doing my damnest to help this be a real start for me producing more decks in the future, without having to keep going back to Kickstarter, like a lot of guys have been doing. Who knows what the future holds, but I'm doing my very best to make sure it's something to remember. If you guys can help to share it too, that would be amazing...Thank you.

Don Boyer · « **Reply #20 on:** June 24, 2013, 09:53:17 PM »

Quote from: leemckenzie on June 24, 2013, 01:59:18 PM

To get personal with you all for a second, it might have been a silly idea, but after seeing Tylers Pedale Design deck, and Fed 52, (great decks), both non-magic related, I thought that playing card guys and magicians who may have liked my previous work would really be happy to jump on Empire and help it be somewhat of a rival to those 2 decks. I don't have a huge network of people to call on, I've been very much behind the scenes at Ellusionist. I haven't wanted to expose myself as much over the years to avoid being found online easily (lets just say I don't know my father, nor want to). I guess I should have put myself out there a lot more.

Eh, don't worry about it. I certainly recognized your name! But more importantly, nobody knew who Tyler Deebs and Jackson Robinson were, either.

The big "powerhouse" decks, the ones that cracked the $100K mark, were all decks that had an appeal beyond the card collecting/magic/cardistry community. Tyler got featured in design blogs, and I'm sure Jackson got coverage further afield as well.

Go BROADER. Anyone into Victoriana or steampunk would go nuts for this design. Find blogs/message boards that cater to those cultures and you'll double or triple your present audience. Design blogs would also be interested.

BTW: congratulations on hitting your goal!

Lee McKenzie · « **Reply #21 on:** June 24, 2013, 10:35:36 PM »

Don...thanks for your strong, positive comments! That helped my mental state a lot.

Great idea. I'm on it. Thanks!

Will report back soon.

S. Carey · « **Reply #22 on:** June 24, 2013, 10:45:04 PM »

I just shared this with some sites like Uncrate.com and CoolMaterial.com - I hope they pick it up. Uncrate featured Bicycle's Guardian deck and the ultimate deck. They also do some KS projects so this should be a no brainer for them.

Lee McKenzie · « **Reply #23 on:** June 24, 2013, 10:57:12 PM »

Scott!!

What a star. Thank you so much for submitting it to them...thats a huge help!

I too have submitted it to Uncrate...hopefully they'll see your request too and HAVE to feature it haha.

Amazing. Thanks for going through the effort of doing that Scott, it's so nice of you to help me out. I appreciate it no end.

Lee

Rob Wright · « **Reply #24 on:** July 10, 2013, 01:47:32 AM »

I just wanted to through a shout out again for these cards. He has 8 more days for funding. Some of the previous comments had expressed concern about giving credit card info. I emailed Lee about this a week or so ago. From my understanding KS holds the card info, and takes the money at the end of funding. Same as Amazon.
Great looking cards. Wish I could afford to order more for gifts.