Redesigned SWARM deck in the works

[rjtomlinson1977]

It was pointed out to me that the printer I used for Gettysburg and the Bradford County History deck had a staple deck that was 100% just like the Bee deck (except for the name of course). I brought this to their attention and the were very ashamed of this fact. They asked me if I would be interested in redesigning their staple deck to set it apart from Bee but at the same time keep a classic look. For the design I wanted to have the classic Red/Gold and Blue/Gold options like you see with Aristocrat Playing Cards, Bee Playing Cards, MPC Playing Cards and countless other staple decks. I also wanted to create a honeycomb shape in the middle that would interlock with other decks placed side by side. Here's what I came up with....

[rjtomlinson1977]

Here's what their current deck looks like...

[Don Boyer]

The Bee Diamond Back design is one of the most commonly-forged decks in the world.  There are the outright counterfeits, Bee brand name and everything, even fake ad and guarantee cards - many even come with a calendar from the early 2000s.  Then there are the lookalikes - like these - that imitate the box design and back pattern but have at least somewhat more original brand names.  It's nice that these guys opted to change the design around into something more original.

So, where are the pictures of the card back?

[rjtomlinson1977]

Here's what I came up with so far. Of course this isn't set in stone yet so it may change many times.

[Don Boyer]

Here's what I came up with so far. Of course this isn't set in stone yet so it may change many times.

You should talk them into letting you make the design with a border of some kind - either a hard white line border or a "fade-to-white" Stinger-style border.  With a pattern like this, if it's not cut very, very precisely for every single deck, you'll end up with a one-way pattern, something that a sneaky gambler will combine with edge sorting to get an edge over their competition.  (Just ask Phil Ivey and the Borgata Casino!)

[NineLives]

I like the way the back 'moves' when you scroll the image Looks nice and clean.

My only concern is if printing/cutting isn't exact - you may get some shifting on the honeycomb... though there may be printers who can manage it...

*wave*

ETA --- sorry, seem to have been typing while Don was posting  Didn't mean to repeat...

[rjtomlinson1977]

Here's an updated version of the blue deck. I felt the deck needed something. The printing company suggest honeycomb in the middle but I couldn't think of a good way to add it. So, for now I put pinstripes on there to kill off some of the white space. I also put a white border around the back design. They are working on their registration (centering) but they're not 100% where they need to be. They just hired a new print manager, Mr. Dong, ( )  they hope will get them to near perfect registration.

[Don Boyer]

Here's an updated version of the blue deck. I felt the deck needed something. The printing company suggest honeycomb in the middle but I couldn't think of a good way to add it. So, for now I put pinstripes on there to kill off some of the white space. I also put a white border around the back design. They are working on their registration (centering) but they're not 100% where they need to be. They just hired a new print manager, Mr. Dong, ( )  they hope will get them to near perfect registration.

A Stinger-style fade-to-white border will hide many sins...  If the registration is off but only by a little bit, the less distinct border edge will help to conceal this.  It also looks cool!  The more gradual the fade, the better is will hide a small error - but nothing will hide a big error.

You could also make a version that's like some of the Madison decks - a honeycomb hex surrounded by white space in a pattern on the card back.

[rjtomlinson1977]

Yes, that does look nice. I'll give it a try and see what I can come up with.

[rjtomlinson1977]

Here's my first attempt at faded edges. It was harder then I thought since Illustrator doesn't have a square gradient. I'll probably try to get it to look better down the road.

[Don Boyer]

Here's my first attempt at faded edges. It was harder then I thought since Illustrator doesn't have a square gradient. I'll probably try to get it to look better down the road.

Yeah, that's not quite there just yet!  You need somewhat more fade.  Even on the Stinger cards, the transitional area isn't very large at all, but there's a distinct transition, though there is also a point where it appears to stop as a hard line.  Note as well that the corners have a very shallow, larger curve to them than the hard-cut corners of the die line/card edge.  There's more white area in the corners.  This is most likely because the Stingers pattern was originally designed for casino use and it got its name because there were miniature oval-shaped "Bee" logos in each of the four corners for the Bee Stingers - Aristocrat Stingers replaced the Bee logo with an oval containing each of the four suit pips.  That corner never usually saw the light of day, as it were, since it was usually covered with one of those logos, so T11 probably improvised just a little when they created their logo-free version.

As far as I know, to date, T11 is the only company that has been given use of the Stinger design by USPC.  They were definitely the first to make Stingers that weren't casino decks.

[rjtomlinson1977]

Now on to the court cards. Of course, in the looks department you won't see much difference... but this was redone 100%. If you look close enough you'll see a few changes but mainly a cleaned up version of the Kind of Diamonds. The one on the left is what they're currently using and the one on the right is the updated one. Oh, yeah... I forgot to add his hand. That was a mistake. He'll have it back soon enough.

[Worst Bower]

Will the new design use security ink? I'm guessing that's their plan since it uses darker hues.

[rjtomlinson1977]

No plans for security ink. I just prefer darker colors. But these are all subject to change. I'm half tempted to make this set of courts available within the creative commons. I'm tired of seeing Frankenstein versions of courts being used by everyone and their brother. I personally wouldn't mind giving these to any who would find good use for them.

[Don Boyer]

No plans for security ink. I just prefer darker colors. But these are all subject to change. I'm half tempted to make this set of courts available within the creative commons. I'm tired of seeing Frankenstein versions of courts being used by everyone and their brother. I personally wouldn't mind giving these to any who would find good use for them.

USPC's courts are actually public domain.  Many decks copy those courts.  The copyright on anything older than 1923 has expired, guaranteed, because of how US copyright law is written and those are considered "non-unique" elements of a deck of cards - in other words, attempting to register them as trademarks would be akin to registering the alphabet as your trademark or patenting the soup spoon - it just doesn't fly.

I think you might have misunderstood what Worst Bower meant when referencing "security ink."  Casino decks will often use that darker shade of red, almost a crimson shade, for their deck faces.  It's because of the advent of the security camera - on a black-and-white camera, the standard red of most decks is too bright and appears as a pale gray, nearly invisible, while the deep red appears as a much darker gray.  As the cameras were upgraded to color models, the deeper reds were still the easier color to read on-screen than the bright reds, so the tradition remains to this day to use dark reds on casino decks.  Some refer to this as "security ink" because of how the darker shade was developed for use by casino security when trying to track cheating from the "eye in the sky" video camera array.  A properly-designed casino is laid out in a way that you couldn't sneeze without someone in the security room saying "Gesundheit!"

Because it's popular on casino decks, some deck designers use them on they playing card designs, T11 being one of the chief proponents of this.  Honestly, I find it easy on the eye than the "clown nose red" of a standard USPC deck.

[rjtomlinson1977]

I see. I learn something new everyday.
By no means was I planing on trying to trademark. I meant to freely give my AI files... which would be unheard of. What vector files that are out there are of the rough line images like shown on the left side of the example above.

[Worst Bower]

I thought you added security ink because the new box says "Casino Grade" while the old one didn't. By having a perfectly symmetrical back pattern with faded borders as well as security ink, the new deck would definitely be considered casino blackjack quality. That's something you might tell your client.

[Don Boyer]

I see. I learn something new everyday.
By no means was I planing on trying to trademark. I meant to freely give my AI files... which would be unheard of. What vector files that are out there are of the rough line images like shown on the left side of the example above.

That's just a slightly modified USPC face, really.  A few details removed, a few details added, but essentially the same.  The clothing pattern is nearly identical, even if the colors are different.

I thought you added security ink because the new box says "Casino Grade" while the old one didn't. By having a perfectly symmetrical back pattern with faded borders as well as security ink, the new deck would definitely be considered casino blackjack quality. That's something you might tell your client.

Often, when one sees "casino quality," they're thinking more of the quality of the paper and the coating rather than the ink pattern.  Honestly, it's a bit of a misnomer, since off-the-shelf Bees are labeled "casino quality" when we might argue they are anything but, these days.

As far as the edges, any casino in their right mind these days has stopped using those print-to-the-bleed card backs in the first place.  Just ask the idiots over at the Borgata that ordered their cards from Gemāco without inspecting them first for poorly-cut edges...  Gemāco had another major screwup recently when they distributed "preshuffled" decks to one casino that were anything but, and a handful of players were quick enough to spot it before the dealer and the floor manager did.

All the Borgata needed to do was have a deck back design that had a white border and that was evenly cut all around.  Lacking that, even with a one-way back, edge sorting could be easily foiled by having the dealer flip the cards around now and then when dropping them back into the shuffler.  Stupidly-simple procedures that were ignored, and now the casino's crying in court that they want their money back...  I can only imagine how far the last player who tried that got!

One way or another, you want a back that isn't easily edge-sorted.  A bordered back is easier to spot when poorly cut and requires slightly less precision to cut, unless your players are examining your cards with magnifying lenses and microscopes.

[NineLives]

Interesting read about colours and edges Wonder how often that sort of thing happens (sortable decks ending up in casinos)?

My preference would have been a 'clean' edge (i.e. white border), though I can see the advantage of having a non-defined edge... could be interesting to see a deeper fade on the Honeycomb back  

[Don Boyer]

Interesting read about colours and edges Wonder how often that sort of thing happens (sortable decks ending up in casinos)?

My preference would have been a 'clean' edge (i.e. white border), though I can see the advantage of having a non-defined edge... could be interesting to see a deeper fade on the Honeycomb back

Casinos pick all kinds of designs, whatever it takes to make players happy and free with their cash.  High rollers get the most attention - and the most concessions.  It's why the Borgata fouled up so royally in so many ways - the gambler, Phil Ivey, allegedly requested a specific deck design, their purple deck, which he may have realized had an off-center cut, thus making edge sorting possible.  He also requested a specific dealer, one that spoke Chinese (he had a Chinese man with him, supposedly an accomplice) and that the dealer use the shuffler for their game instead of "washing the cards" by spreading them all over the table and scooping them back up, the most random way to mix a set of cards known - though some mathematicians are starting to theorize that there is indeed a pattern to even that type of shuffle from dealer to dealer.  The game played, if memory serves, was a variant of baccarat - I think that while the gameplay is closer to that of blackjack, it may only use a single deck, more like poker, allowing one to try some attempt at divining odds of a particular draw.

But as I said, the smarter casinos ditched the print-to-the-bleed or "borderless" patterns or and now use either white borders or a Stinger-style fade-to-white border.  There's other factors to consider for this as well - edge chipping, which can occur naturally in use or intentionally by player abuse, is another factor that a white border is not as seriously affected by.  It's why everyone loved the cool look of a black deck of cards in the beginning, when the custom deck resurgence began, then a few years ago they suddenly fell out of favor - they showed edge damage way too easily, suddenly going from looking cool to looking beaten and worn before their time, and people realized there are other cool patterns out there that don't suffer from the same problem.  One can conceal the damage with a marker, but it's only delaying the inevitable - and the deck's performance tends to take a hit with all that marker ink soaked into the card edges.

[NineLives]

Truly fascinating, thank you
Things have definitely come a long way (on both sides) since the old-olden days of 'scraping away' the 'n' on the old Knave to acquire an additional King

I just assumed that there was a 'set' type of deck, which perhaps varied (i.e. branded backs or similar) between different casinos. It does make sense to keep players interested, though I guess they need to be 2 steps ahead, pre-empting how a deck could be edge-sorted or otherwise - before it happens

[Don Boyer]

Truly fascinating, thank you
Things have definitely come a long way (on both sides) since the old-olden days of 'scraping away' the 'n' on the old Knave to acquire an additional King

I just assumed that there was a 'set' type of deck, which perhaps varied (i.e. branded backs or similar) between different casinos. It does make sense to keep players interested, though I guess they need to be 2 steps ahead, pre-empting how a deck could be edge-sorted or otherwise - before it happens

While many casinos do order simple, "pre-designed" decks from a selections of backs and faces, some will arrange for custom designs - I have a great one from the House of Blues Casino in Atlantic City, a rarity in that it's the only Gemāco deck I've ever owned that handled reasonably well!  A full-custom job is more the exception than the rule - unique backs happen now and then, particularly at the more successful casinos that have the money to spare for custom work, but faces are usually completely standard.  By that, I mean "casino standard," which for paper decks will usually be "Tech-Art" faces or something similar.  They use a special design that (combined with a specially-placed mirror built into the blackjack table) allows a blackjack dealer to know if he or she is holding blackjack without having to flip over the cards they were dealt.

[rjtomlinson1977]

Here's all the updated Kings for the Swarm deck. I still need to make a few adjustments with the pips but overall I'm happy with the results.

[Don Boyer]

Here's all the updated Kings for the Swarm deck. I still need to make a few adjustments with the pips but overall I'm happy with the results.

I like how the eyes look.  The King of Diamonds looks like he's missing something without that empty hand being there.

[The London magician]

This is really interesting for me, I haven't seen a custom casino deck (apart from the cherry deck) before, but maybe I just haven't looked.

Maybe you could try finishing the borders with just the hexagon shape - making for a new kind of border.

Love it so far!