Author (Read 6537 times)

Shebhnt · « **on:** March 11, 2014, 02:40:57 PM »

Just was messing around today, challenged myself to come up with ideas where there is no curves only sharp corners. This was the back I came up with. Let me know what you guys think.

Josh Blackmon · « **Reply #1 on:** March 11, 2014, 03:42:19 PM »

I think it looks like an argyle pattern at first glance. Cool how you incorporated all the suits into the design. Neat.

Don Boyer · « **Reply #2 on:** March 11, 2014, 11:29:16 PM »

I've seen a lot of "sharp angle" decks around - more than a few through Kickstarter. No offense intended but the concept is a little worn out for me. I find cards, like women (back when I was still dating), to be more inviting when they have curves in the right places, as opposed to being pointy and angular...

Shebhnt · « **Reply #3 on:** March 12, 2014, 11:11:29 AM »

Quote from: Don Boyer on March 11, 2014, 11:29:16 PM

I've seen a lot of "sharp angle" decks around - more than a few through Kickstarter. No offense intended but the concept is a little worn out for me. I find cards, like women (back when I was still dating), to be more inviting when they have curves in the right places, as opposed to being pointy and angular...

Oh I believe you when you say you have seen more than enough of these. I did try to do a quick search to see how overdone this was but I didn't actually find too many but I knew they had to be out there somewhere.

This was more of just a design challenge but I am also testing it out with a court card to see how the design works out. Who knows, if it does turn out well I might do a very simple kickstarter but just use a printer like MPC and aim for a low amount. (since the only thing I would really want out of doing it would be to be able to order enough for the custom tuck box)

Oh and I agree with you about women

Shebhnt · « **Reply #4 on:** March 12, 2014, 03:13:16 PM »

Here is my first idea for the court cards, while making them I was reminded of the opening to Casino Royal.

Don Boyer · « **Reply #5 on:** March 12, 2014, 04:06:33 PM »

Quote from: Shebhnt on March 12, 2014, 03:13:16 PM

Here is my first idea for the court cards, while making them I was reminded of the opening to Casino Royal.

So tell me, how long was it before the movie started that you dropped the acid hits?

That does NOT in any way resemble the opening of "Casino Royale", or at least not the one I saw...

Shebhnt · « **Reply #6 on:** March 12, 2014, 04:47:20 PM »

The guys that are made up of just solid shapes. If I gave my king a tux and tie he would look rather similar.

Edit: Then again I haven't seen it in a while so let me go watch it again...

Ok, so it does look different but it's not too far, also in my defense I don't remember them being 3d objects but more 2d shapes.

Shebhnt · « **Reply #7 on:** March 17, 2014, 06:17:09 PM »

An idea for the aces. I always wanted to make sure all the aces looked special, not just the spades.

Don Boyer · « **Reply #8 on:** March 18, 2014, 02:05:01 AM »

Quote from: Shebhnt on March 17, 2014, 06:17:09 PM

An idea for the aces. I always wanted to make sure all the aces looked special, not just the spades.

OK, a few things going on here.

Your black suits have the suit pips upside down in the indices.

It's not a good idea to mix red and black in the same pip - it can make them too easy to confuse for other pips. And your diamonds, hearts and spades are not adequately different from each other to avoid confusing them for each other.

DON'T BE DIFFERENT JUST FOR THE SAKE OF BEING DIFFERENT. If you have a reason, a solid reason, for being different, make that clear in the design. You want hard angles, great - make hard angles, but those color and shape mix-ups have nothing to do with hard angles, or angles of any kind, for that matter. Don't just think "angular" - think "functional" as well. It has to work as a deck of cards, or it's not really a deck of cards anymore, it's just a bunch of arty looking designs that look like Mondrian variants seen from the wrong angle.

Shebhnt · « **Reply #9 on:** March 18, 2014, 08:01:28 AM »

Quote from: Don Boyer on March 18, 2014, 02:05:01 AM

Quote from: Shebhnt on March 17, 2014, 06:17:09 PM
An idea for the aces. I always wanted to make sure all the aces looked special, not just the spades.

OK, a few things going on here.

Your black suits have the suit pips upside down in the indices.

It's not a good idea to mix red and black in the same pip - it can make them too easy to confuse for other pips. And your diamonds, hearts and spades are not adequately different from each other to avoid confusing them for each other.

DON'T BE DIFFERENT JUST FOR THE SAKE OF BEING DIFFERENT. If you have a reason, a solid reason, for being different, make that clear in the design. You want hard angles, great - make hard angles, but those color and shape mix-ups have nothing to do with hard angles, or angles of any kind, for that matter. Don't just think "angular" - think "functional" as well. It has to work as a deck of cards, or it's not really a deck of cards anymore, it's just a bunch of arty looking designs that look like Mondrian variants seen from the wrong angle.

I understand the issue with the color and I'm honestly not trying to be different for the sake of being different. I was going along with the style and theme that I established in the back design. I felt like the aces were a reflection of the back. Now I understand that having the little bit of red can cause confusion and will look at other solutions. I did think of keeping what I have, get rid of the middle being filled with red, and then just change the black lines to red for hearts and diamonds.

Oh, and the black pips being backwards was a complete accident that I will fix.

Don Boyer · « **Reply #10 on:** March 18, 2014, 08:49:57 AM »

Quote from: Shebhnt on March 18, 2014, 08:01:28 AM

I understand the issue with the color and I'm honestly not trying to be different for the sake of being different. I was going along with the style and theme that I established in the back design. I felt like the aces were a reflection of the back. Now I understand that having the little bit of red can cause confusion and will look at other solutions. I did think of keeping what I have, get rid of the middle being filled with red, and then just change the black lines to red for hearts and diamonds.

Oh, and the black pips being backwards was a complete accident that I will fix.

You should consider filling in one of the red suit pips. As it looks presently, when I look at all four together, I feel like I'm playing "Which of these things are not like the others?" One filled-in club and the rest aren't - it stands out, looks out of place. Two filled in pips would make more sense and make all of them visually distinctive from each other.

If it was my choice, I'd color in the heart red.

Shebhnt · « **Reply #11 on:** March 28, 2014, 05:53:50 PM »

Take 2 on the aces, Don I think you will appreciate this a little bit better since I'm not mixing my colors anymore.

Don Boyer · « **Reply #12 on:** March 28, 2014, 08:35:33 PM »

Quote from: Shebhnt on March 28, 2014, 05:53:50 PM

Take 2 on the aces, Don I think you will appreciate this a little bit better since I'm not mixing my colors anymore.

Do you see the pips used in the indices? Those would be better than the ones in the middle of the card.

Your spade, heart and diamond are too close together in appearance. Nearly identical, in fact. What happened to the idea I gave you about coloring in a red pip and a black one?

Shebhnt · « **Reply #13 on:** April 15, 2014, 03:55:22 PM »

still messing around with this design, here is another aces variation as well as an idea for the jokers.

I actually do want to take this deck and see about doing a kickstarter with it. I'm aiming at keeping it small and go with MPC. I only say this because I'm not shooting to sell a lot of cards, I would be happy even if enough people liked it to sell a 100 of them. I also calculated out costs and know that if I raise a 1000 I should be totally fine with shipping costs with a run of only a 100.

Don Boyer · « **Reply #14 on:** April 16, 2014, 12:43:40 AM »

Quote from: Shebhnt on April 15, 2014, 03:55:22 PM

still messing around with this design, here is another aces variation as well as an idea for the jokers.

I actually do want to take this deck and see about doing a kickstarter with it. I'm aiming at keeping it small and go with MPC. I only say this because I'm not shooting to sell a lot of cards, I would be happy even if enough people liked it to sell a 100 of them. I also calculated out costs and know that if I raise a 1000 I should be totally fine with shipping costs with a run of only a 100.

Instead of depending on "should be fine," you should do the math, assuming you haven't already. It's also important to keep tabs on changes in costs - a number of projects were hit hard at the beginning of 2013 and 2014 due to calculating their postage needs based on current pricing, only to fall short when the price increased in January of both of those years. A few projects that closed before the increase but didn't deliver until after had some cash flow issues as a result.

Not trying to burst any bubbles - just want you to head into this armed and ready.

Shebhnt · « **Reply #15 on:** April 16, 2014, 09:24:36 AM »

Oh I have made sure to check how much postage is going for. Of course, that $1000 was also under the idea that I would only ship in the US. I also was going to do all the fulfillment myself as I don't plan to have that big of a campaign.

Don Boyer · « **Reply #16 on:** April 17, 2014, 12:30:53 PM »

Quote from: Shebhnt on April 16, 2014, 09:24:36 AM

Oh I have made sure to check how much postage is going for. Of course, that $1000 was also under the idea that I would only ship in the US. I also was going to do all the fulfillment myself as I don't plan to have that big of a campaign.

It's not just postage. Consider every single aspect of your campaign, leaving no stone unturned, and determine what it's going to cost you. Are you offering uncut sheets? Dice? T-shirts? ANYTHING else but decks? You need to determine costs to you to obtain them, costs to receive them (in the event your provider doesn't give free shipping) and what they'll cost for your backers, allowing enough room for a profit AND a margin of error.

Also be sure there can be no legal challenges to your ownership of the intellectual property - that's what ultimately sank the Bicycle Army Men deck.

Shebhnt · « **Reply #17 on:** April 17, 2014, 12:51:58 PM »

Yeah I wasn't planning on any other add ons. I know I can get uncut sheets from MPC for $9 a piece and was thinking about it. Right now the $1000 covers just the cards and the cost of shipping them to potential backers in the US.

The harder part for me is pricing. I've been playing with numbers, having so many early birds, what the "standard" price is, making sure I make a profit but not pricing them too high as to not get any backers, etc. I was thinking about that I could charge shipping after the fact which actually seems a little deceptive to me (charge only $7 but then add on $3 for shipping instead of just charging $10 for example).

The other thing I have been thinking about is that I would love to get a custom tuck box but MPC requires you to order at least 100, I was thinking of making this a stretch goal in case I don't get a ton of backers.

Don Boyer · « **Reply #18 on:** April 17, 2014, 10:51:34 PM »

Don't charge separately for shipping. It would make you the exception rather than the rule and people generally won't appreciate it.

Set your goal to get to the custom box level. Generic boxes don't exactly light fires under your backers to want more, especially when you factor in that there are many collectors who buy practically for the box alone.

Shebhnt · « **Reply #19 on:** April 18, 2014, 12:57:12 AM »

Ok that gives me a better idea of how I should handle pricing then. I think I'll have a few early backer deals but make sure it all works out so that I can order at least a 100 decks and afford to ship them.

I'll probably just do the uncut sheets as an add on. Also, it seems like most projects cover domestic but charge extra for international. I'll probably go that route to make sure that I can reach the most backers.

Now to just finish up some of the artwork. I really want to have this deck mostly complete before I go to kickstarter.

Edit: Hey Don, I was thinking about changing this into a contest entry. I have a few ideas for the contest actually but I was wondering if there is a limit to the amount of designs you can enter? I looked over the rules and I didn't see anything that addressed this.

Shebhnt · « **Reply #20 on:** April 29, 2014, 07:37:06 PM »

I added some color to the back.

Don Boyer · « **Reply #21 on:** April 29, 2014, 09:43:44 PM »

Quote from: Shebhnt on April 18, 2014, 12:57:12 AM

Ok that gives me a better idea of how I should handle pricing then. I think I'll have a few early backer deals but make sure it all works out so that I can order at least a 100 decks and afford to ship them.

I'll probably just do the uncut sheets as an add on. Also, it seems like most projects cover domestic but charge extra for international. I'll probably go that route to make sure that I can reach the most backers.

Now to just finish up some of the artwork. I really want to have this deck mostly complete before I go to kickstarter.

Edit: Hey Don, I was thinking about changing this into a contest entry. I have a few ideas for the contest actually but I was wondering if there is a limit to the amount of designs you can enter? I looked over the rules and I didn't see anything that addressed this.

I mentioned this in the Rules topic, but I'll say it here as well. You can post more than one deck to the Design/Dev board, but when it comes time to make your entry in the Playing Card Plethora on the Contest topic, you may only make one. This would afford you the chance to test out more than one design before deciding which to submit.

Do bear in mind: if you split your focus too many ways, instead of doing one thing well, you may end up doing many things poorly.

Shebhnt · « **Reply #22 on:** May 07, 2014, 01:41:37 PM »

So I have been redoing the face cards, I think they look a lot better.

pitneyw · « **Reply #23 on:** May 08, 2014, 01:43:00 AM »

Hey Shebhnt,
Great work so far. Hate to show up late to this convo but here are my suggestions to help improve your deck:
First is color - you're getting what is called 'vibrating boundaries' with all your super bright and saturated colors. This is usually something to avoid unless you are specifically going for an op art look. A great tool for picking out colors is https://kuler.adobe.com/create/color-wheel/ (Super free / Super awesome) So, because you related them to Casino Royal, I took some spot samples and replaced the colors with the movies. For the grayscale card, I simplified the number of shades from 7 to 5 - only having 3 shades of gray helps boost contrast and readability.

Second is consistency - Keeping the same stoke width helps unify a set of pips and prevents uneven amounts of detail.

Again, solid design. Looking forward to where it ends up'

Leif · « **Reply #24 on:** May 08, 2014, 05:17:14 AM »

Quote from: pitneyw on May 08, 2014, 01:43:00 AM

Hey Shebhnt,
Great work so far. Hate to show up late to this convo but here are my suggestions to help improve your deck:
First is color - you're getting what is called 'vibrating boundaries' with all your super bright and saturated colors. This is usually something to avoid unless you are specifically going for an op art look. A great tool for picking out colors is https://kuler.adobe.com/create/color-wheel/ (Super free / Super awesome) So, because you related them to Casino Royal, I took some spot samples and replaced the colors with the movies. For the grayscale card, I simplified the number of shades from 7 to 5 - only having 3 shades of gray helps boost contrast and readability.

Second is consistency - Keeping the same stoke width helps unify a set of pips and prevents uneven amounts of detail.

Again, solid design. Looking forward to where it ends up'

I have seldom learned so much from one single post, thank you.

Shebhnt, you are doing great. Can't wait to see the rest.