I oversleep for a while and this is what happens...
First, I want to get something straight for all the members here. You will NEVER get kicked off the boards for disagreeing with me. If you have a negative opinion about me but express it in a respectful manner, I'm EAGER to hear it and will never ban you for it. I'm as human as the next person, and the last thing I want is an entire board of people yes-ing me to death - that sounds boring and dull, and not the kind of board I'd want to be a part of.
Bryan07, you asked about my experience - I've consulted on six decks with Uusi (you guys forgot Blueblood Redux!) and several decks with other companies. I received a message just yesterday from a new potential client. As far as my own personal deck design experience, I'm actually in the middle of a secret deck project, one which everyone here will know more about in the next month or two. I can't reveal details right now as it's a project that uses another company's intellectual property and our contract is still in the process of being prepared. I'm no graphic design expert, but as a collector and a magician, I've learned a lot about what makes a deck a functional, working deck - in essence the rules of deck design. They're not that hard to learn, at least not for me, and you can break a rule now and then - but better if you have a reason for doing so other than "I didn't know", that it has a purpose in your deck, that to not break it would alter your design in a fundamental way. And of course, there are decks of playing cards that are "playing" in name only, used as a medium for someone's art or for the dissemination of information, and is a pack of "playing cards" as a secondary use.
Yes, I was very opinionated about this deck. Some on this board agreed with me, as well. The name really is a terrible one. The artwork has been done before - perhaps not exactly like this, but similar enough in the consumers' eyes that it doesn't really matter. You wanted constructive criticism? Perhaps you missed this recent post, quoted below in bold.
If you're going to go down a path that's been explored before, you have to be better at it than those who came before you. Just as good as them isn't enough, because no one will care. We all know of the first expedition to hit the peak of Mount Everest - I bet no one here knows who was the second, third or any of the other first 100. If number 17,854 wants to get noticed, they'd better be the first ones who packed wingsuits and use them to descend the whole way down...or the first ones who communicate with the ISS by lighting their farts in Morse code...or the first ones to hold Burning Man Nepal on the peak (with just one chemical toilet and it's frozen solid)...As much as you wish you were, Roman/Noir-Arts, you are not the first to market with this general design idea. You're closer to 17,854th. You need something else if you want your deck to make people stand up and take notice. Otherwise, it's just another gold skull deck. Believe it or not, the art itself really isn't bad in my opinion. It's just that we've seen so many projects just like it, we've grown tired of it. If you released this deck two years ago, you'd have been a smash-hit success, almost certainly - but today, you're just late to the market and look like too many other decks to stand out in the crowd.
Better name? Heck, something as simple as "Black Gold" and "White Gold" would have been a better pair of names. Some goofy, faux Latin name with the word "defunct" in it is not the best choice or even close to it. I understand the desire for unusual and unique, but "unique" and "unusual" are not automatically synonymous with "great" or even "good". I was told once that the expression "May you live in interesting times" is actually an old Chinese curse. Using an original name solely for the reason that it's unusual doesn't always have desired results. I can remember an episode of a cartoon, I think it was "the Simpsons", where a car company was releasing a new sports car that ended up with the name "Seborrhea" - sounds kinda cool until you learn that it's the name of a skin disease. In real life, Chevrolet tried importing their popular "Nova" model to South America without bothering to take into consideration that "no va" in Spanish means "doesn't go". As you can imagine, sales weren't exactly stellar.
More original design idea? Imagine doing this in full color, no gold ink. Suddenly it starts to look more original. And that's just one teeny tweak of an idea, not a total overhaul. There's other, simple concepts that could have been employed, something different enough to make the deck unique while still retaining its charm.
It sucks when someone has bad things to say about a labor of love. Trust me, I know. If you feel I got carried away with the joking, accept this apology - I make mistakes no different than anyone else and I'll own up to them where others might hide. But a designer should never, ever take our comments personally - and the good ones never do. It's not the person we're at issue with but the deck, and because we are passionate about playing cards, our opinions can be a little, well, "opinionated" at times. But ask what can be done, I guarantee you you'll have a list of options to choose from - and not all of them would be mine.
Feel free to take my ideas and reject every single one. I'm not the be-all and end-all of playing card design, not even close. It won't bother me in the least, I won't take offense, I won't kick you off the boards, etc. Not every idea I come up with is made of chocolate and dipped in caramel - I'll admit up front that some stink! But overall, I have a pretty decent track record, and there are the opinions of others here as well. You'd do well to consider that, especially if you're hearing the same ideas from multiple people - they may have a point worth investigating.
Finally, to close things out, if you take every single card collector in the market and added them all up, we'd only make up a fraction of a fraction of the overall playing card market. We buy more than the average consumer, but not enough to make us much more than a little blip on the radar. Feel free to pursue whatever path you feel you must in the creation of your deck - no one here will get in your way and we'll always welcome you back.
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