"Stained Glass" Playing Cards (KS)

[Rob Wright]

"Stained Glass" Playing Cards



I know Mike Ratledge mentioned a "Stained Glass' deck being launched on CardLauncher.com
Re: I've been too quite: the "CardLauncher.com" and Chromografix™ projects - soon
Not sure if this is the same one.

54-Card Deck of standard Playing Cards designed in a "Stained Glass" motif.


After being successfully funded on our last two projects, we are excited to present this unique deck of playing cards designed to resemble stained glass windows. The feedback on previous projects has been tremendous and we hope you enjoy this deck just as much as it's predecessors. One thing we have been deeply proud of, has been our ability to ship our decks all over the world, usually within a month of the end of our campaigns. People have been pleasantly surprised with the turnaround time on our projects, and we are dedicated to maintain our reputation. So without further ado... here are the cards!!!

[Don Boyer]

They really made awful indices.  When holding a hand of cards, you have to play "guess the suit" using the color of the stained glass as your hint!  Either that, or spread the cards far enough that anyone can read what you're holding...

So much artistic talent, so little common sense...

[Will W.]

Great concept, But it comes off as a little cartoonish to me. Would love to see this concept realized in a more realistic style.

[Rose]

Great concept, But it comes off as a little cartoonish to me. Would love to see this concept realized in a more realistic style.

I completely agree, when I saw 'Stained Glass' I imagined something really beautiful, and the black borders are too large, but I do like the colour, like rainbows and unicorns, and it is refreshing something new and original.

[BiggerDee]

Cellophane is a goal? What was the alternative...loose cards in a shipping box?

[Don Boyer]

Cellophane is a goal? What was the alternative...loose cards in a shipping box?

If you read more carefully, you'll see that while it's listed with the stretch goals, it is not an actual stretch goal.  It's the primary goal of $500.  The alternative would be that the project doesn't fund and no cards are made...but you can maybe still have some cellophane if you ask nicely! 

[undefinedknowledge]

Been getting a lot of feedback about this deck, so I just wanted to introduce myself and include some replies to different questions spanning several different forums... Thank you all for looking at the deck and for the feedback! We hope to learn as much as we can!

Hey just wanted to introduce myself. (I'm Andy, nice to meet you). I am one of the creators of the Stained Glass Deck KS project. Will Hart directed me to this post and I am glad to be able to read all the feedback. I must say reading all the comments has been very insightful! I would consider myself 95% designer, 5% card player. So there are reasons why this is learning process!

When we started out, we wanted to design strictly "new" card games, which we did (our first project Draw Blood) Both my partner and I work day jobs, and so, with life being life, we work hard to design and share at least ONE cool, new, concept game each year. While we are designing and working on those games, we have been putting out regular playing card decks with designs we come up with, that we hope others think are cool. As I said, it's has definitely been a learning process! These decks (Cats and Stained Glass) are simply other ideas we have with graphics and concepts that we love, but ideas that we might not be able to chase down and literally translate into a new game. But what these ‘deck’ projects offer us, is the opportunity to generate capital in order to fund our other prototype games. We don’t normally share information like this. But, to be part of a community, one must get to know and understand the other. We are excited to be new to Kickstarter. And to hopefully become part of a family.

Re: the artwork and design (flaws). I am glad to be in the loop with these concerns. Regarding the borders. We want to fix this immediately, and while I would like to turn all the fronts into a black border... I think with our time limitations on this project, it would be easier to turn the back to a white border? Any thoughts you guys have on this are welcome... Even though I like the black border better, having the consistent white border on both sides would fix the problem at least?

As for the Suit indices. We considered, but opted to not include them under the numbers completely from a design perspective in regards to making them "look" like stained glass. We never came up with a solution that we felt incorporated suit indices into the "stained glass" design in a good way. That being said, we will probably include these in all future decks.

Re: the queen of Spades. I thought I had cross-checked all the face card directions, but not sure how that one was overlooked. I will correct that in the final product.

Anyway, feel free to ask me any questions and thank you for linking to our project, and THANK YOU anyone that has backed the project!!! We have shipped all our cards within a month of the campaign's end and we put a lot of pride and energy in a fast turnaround. In addition, we both work hard to constantly evolve. And with this desire, become better and better. Thank you again for your feedback and introduction!

[DarkDerp]

I really like the back design, my only critique would be the width of the black border. For me anything over .25 is too big, but thats my personal preference.

Something looks off to me with the  pips and how they align with the background. There is a shadow effect on each pip that does not correspond with the glass background which gives it an odd look.  The line angles between background and foreground seem off and the faces as a whole are  missing the flow the back design highlights so well. Maybe if the glass pieces were a bit larger or even went the other route and went  _{really really} tiny with more of a cohesive yet intricate pattern?

Thanks so much for joining us here!

[BiggerDee]

True, I was just noting that it was interesting to list it that way, and present it so prominently.

[Don Boyer]

Hey, Andy, thanks for coming by.

Without a proper, complete index, playing cards do become more difficult to use.  There's a reason why the index was created about 150 years ago!

I also found it curious that you were going with plain, low-detail faces and clothing.  When I think of stained glass, I think of the windows in a Catholic church with some history to it, with ye olde style windows, loaded with details - the ones in my old church displayed the Stations of the Cross.  In your deck, every value is wearing the same exact outfit in different colors - even off-the-shelf decks don't do that.

[aldazar]

My 2 cents on the indices: While it's true that the indices aren't easy to read, let's be honest - if you're going to play a game of poker (or other card game), you have literally thousands of different decks to choose from, many of which have very clear indices... Most likely if you got this deck, you got it for the art, and it might just be enough to appreciate how nice it looks?

I mean you could make a philosophical argument about how if it's a playing card you should be able to play with it (ie indices should be clear), but I think from a practical perspective, one could easily make the argument for form over function in some cases such as this...

[Rose]

Hi Andy,
Thanks for joining us here, we all really appreciate your ideas.
I think what I was imagining was really detailed stained glass, I'm not sure anyone could accomplish this quickly, and I don't think white borders would be great, but I do however love that you have colour, also keep in mind you can't please everyone all the time, so stay true to your vision, this is only my opinion.
Attached my vision 
Thanks for sharing!

[Sher143]

Rob,  it's not the same one that Mike was referring to.  Mike was referring to Volantangel's stained glass deck. 

[undefinedknowledge]

Hey everyone thank you for the warm welcomes. I am attaching a re-design, but we are debating if we really want to change things mid-campaign or not. We might just add a white border to the card back to match the white border on the front, and then apply the rest into the design considerations of future decks!

[DarkDerp]

With 11 days to go and 184% funding I would say.. Number one. Congratulations!! And number two: Stay true to your backers, listen to them not all of us.

With that said. You have a great talent and If you ever decide to launch a project on a broader scale/market there are alot of people on this board that could help you reach that market. The rules and nuances of playing cards make for an unusual canvas. The design has to clear a high bar of function  before the form is even considered by most. Get it right though... many a wallet will be thrown in your direction.

Also, you should stick around the forum,  add your voice and perspective to the discussion.

[Don Boyer]

Hey everyone thank you for the warm welcomes. I am attaching a re-design, but we are debating if we really want to change things mid-campaign or not. We might just add a white border to the card back to match the white border on the front, and then apply the rest into the design considerations of future decks!

For artistic integrity, consider the opposite - adding black borders to the front instead of white borders to the back.  Stained glass is much more attractive when seen in a darkened space, so a black deck in this case would look more impressive.

This late into the project, I wouldn't make too many radical changes in the design.  You could make a "version two" deck down the road with design improvements if you wanted to.  As successful as your project is now, many if not most of the recommendations we've made would make the next deck that much more successful.

If you're interested in more one-on-one help, I do consulting work for playing card designers.  My largest client to date is Uusi, a design firm out of Chicago which has made six Kickstarter campaigns for playing card decks so far, with their final coming sometime next year.  I worked with them on all but the first project.

[undefinedknowledge]

Been meaning to post sooner. I definitely want to stick around the forums as this has been a great experience overall. Been checking out a lot of other decks as well! Anyway, just wanted to let everyone know that we did end up updating the design for this current campaign. Feel free to check it out, copy/pasting the official "Update" below. Thanks again for all the feedback everyone, and we have some other decks in the works that I might post some previews on here if anyone is interested... and Don, I might take you up on the consulting in the future!

- Andy

UPDATE ON KICKSTARTER READ AS FOLLOWS:
"It has been brought to our attention that there are some changes people would like to see in our design. And after much thought, we decided to see these changes through. Kickstarter is a great platform in that it creates an opportunity for the creators and backers to collaborate during the production process and we are happy to have you all as collaborators as this projects evolves and takes new shape.

That being said, we will be making two changes to the front of this deck. If you are unhappy with any of the changes, we deeply apologize. Please know we would hate to lose your interest. But once these specific limitations were identified, we felt compelled to change our design (we are designers, lol). So if you are saying, "What the...!?! It’s like this. The back of our cards are black, while the face of the cards are white. This difference limits the possibility of manipulating a card in this deck. This ability is applicable in many various worlds of cards. So our first change was to unify the front and back design by making both black. The second change is that we will be adding the suit symbol indices to the front of the cards underneath the numbers. We feel both these changes make this deck design more complete and practical, without sacrificing any elements of the artwork that inspired this deck.

In fact we think the all black borders actually augment the "stained glass" concept of the design even further.

We will be posting this change shortly, and also attaching the changes to the bottom of this update. Again, we apologize for any inconvenience or issues anyone might have with these changes. And also thank you to all of you who reached out to us and offered your opinions. We believe this deck is stronger because of it! Please feel free to contact us with any concerns, questions, etc. We are always listening!"

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1141951673/stained-glass-playing-cards

[Will W.]

Wow... Big difference... Looks great on the black background. Makes it pop...