Dwarfs First time around, early art work.

[8lack8ear]

Hi every one, this is still very early days for us and we are still figuring it out as we go. The art work is by my very talented friend and partner Aran De Baron. (http://www.arandebaron.com.au) we are hoping to produce a deck of cards that will appeal to the collector and the player and would like to get some feed back early on. Shown first is the Ace of Harts, the patterns around the edges are not quite right and we may be changing them for something a bit more "blocky" and brutish and we need to play with the aspect ratio (center pieces vs border designs)

The other drawing are preliminary sketches of what will hopefully become 2 of the Kings a Queen and the Jester the Ace of Diamonds and what I believe should be part of the card back design (the boar)

Please be brutally honest, we really want to make something awesome and we cannot do it without you guys.

Cheers
 

[8lack8ear]

The rest of the drawings

[Cardfool]

Nice artwork I am definitely interested in seeing more!  Only thing is that your Ace is illegible and that does not make for good gameplay

[8lack8ear]

Hi Cardfool

Thanks for the encouragement, we will be posting new stuff soon. I'm getting similar comments about the font from another forum and from my wife of all people. We wanted the lettering to have the look and feel of runes, how much of a problem would you say it is? We may have to find a compromise between "darkly mysterious" and "real world readable".

[Don Boyer]

Hi Cardfool

Thanks for the encouragement, we will be posting new stuff soon. I'm getting similar comments about the font from another forum and from my wife of all people. We wanted the lettering to have the look and feel of runes, how much of a problem would you say it is? We may have to find a compromise between "darkly mysterious" and "real world readable".

If you want your deck to be as functional and playable as possible, then readability of the indices is critical.  You need to push the dial closer to "real world readable."  But you don't have to toss out "darkly mysterious" if you don't want to - there's ways to incorporate both in your design.  You can incorporate the "A" into the body of the artwork, or you could make indices in the normally-empty corners with "darkly mysterious" rune-like indices, giving people a choice of which to use.  Be inventive, be creative - but remember what makes a deck of playing cards easy to use and functional, as well.  "Unique" and "good" can be but aren't always synonymous!

[8lack8ear]

Thanks for the great welcome and the feed back, we've made a few changes, and we're still thinking about the background we got some negative feedback about using the faded old style paper (and when I say negative I mean that its not very popular) so we have gone for stone and thinking about maybe wood, with runes carved into it. I like the new indices but Aran really struggled with this as he really loved the original. I do think he has found a great middle ground. we have also decided not to go with a full bleed. The design is still missing some border elements, very much still a work in progress. I have also added the updated Ace of Diamonds, we are very excited about this one. Let us know what you think. 

[Sarah F]

Nice art and direction! The move to stone fits well. I have a question about the diamonds... Are they rubies/gems? The Ace of diamonds is looking meaty to me. Maybe pushing the geometric shapes and adding reflections will help it move that direction?

Looking forward to seeing more.

[8lack8ear]

Hi Sarah,

We did think about the Ruby vs Diamond thing before hand, thing is, Diamonds in playing cards have always red (does that mean that they are actually rubies?  )  and we wanted to have a rough chunky look. The pips will be closer to the normal shape. We will think about it some more though.

Thanks!

[hawk199]

Nice was gonna comment about the Ace lettering can't really read it well (1st image) but you fixxed the problem

But same issue as Sarah, the 'ruby' is meaty, shave off top left / and right \  should be enough? as the bottom half is fine

[8lack8ear]

Its a Club! Not your traditional leaf, I know, but can you see a dwarf beating any one over the head with a clover? Hopefully the suit is still recognizable.

[Don Boyer]

Try an experiment - take the existing card designs and replace the indices with more standard shapes and lettering.  It doesn't have to be bog-standard lettering or bog-standard pips, but make them much closer to the standard and see how it looks.  It will increase the playability of the deck tremendously - and you can leave the pips in the middle of the card alone, all nice and artsy and unique and cool-looking.

It's not that the ancient paper look is not very popular - it's more accurate to say that it's been overdone, used in too many decks, even designs where it had absolutely no business being there.  There's nothing stopping you from sticking to a paper-y background - but without the faux-aged look.  Make it look like what new parchment paper looks like, perhaps.  Wood and stone are good choices as well, as you mentioned.

Staying away from printing the faces into the bleed area is a good idea.  I posted a video here about the potential for flaws that arise when printing face elements into the bleed - I was able to do fun things like sort red cards from black cards just by looking at the edge, plucking a chosen card from anywhere in the deck, etc., all because of an unfortunate combination of design choices and minor printing/die-cutting flaws in a particular deck.

[8lack8ear]

We think we are onto a good thing here, Aran worked very hard and after some long discussions he came up with the following.

[Don Boyer]

We think we are onto a good thing here, Aran worked very hard and after some long discussions he came up with the following.

I will ask you the same question I ask a lot of people who choose geometric designs for their custom pips:

Why are you trying to reinvent the wheel when the ones we have work perfectly fine? 

Geometric patterns like those are too similar to each other.  The spades and clubs are the exact same shape, albeit with different lines in the middle - but because of that identical shape, they'll be too easily confused with each other.  Flipping the spade over doesn't help, either - it just makes it look like an upside-down heart in the wrong color.

If you want to sell to the largest audience possible, you can gently tweak the traditional French pip designs, but if you go too far from the standard, you'll lose potential customers.  These designs go too far, in my opinion.

[Sarah F]

Don has some good points about thinking of the mass appeal so your crowdfunding is successful. Your new round of pips, to me, seem like they are on the right track. However, there are useful functions to people who use playing cards, so it's good to think about!

With that said, I would go back to your first pip sketch: the pips are a little narrower, the lines are tighter so there's not as much white space inside, the shorter stems are nice, and there's a hand drawn feel that pairs well with act of carving these in stone. (I can see your number cards with these hand drawn/carved pips, could be beautiful).

And I agree with Don that each pip should be distinct from one another. For example, i think the clubs could benefit more space between the leaves or 'lobes.(What are they officially called? ha!). 

You talked about runes being an inspiration, but there are a lot of curves in the designs, too, so I don't think it would be a departure if you soften up the geometric shapes you presented for your pips.

Good luck!

[Don Boyer]

Thanks, Sarah, for the support!

I will add a codicil of sorts to what I said - if you love these geometric designs, then go for it, use them, but use them in the body art of the card and use a more standard set of pips in the indices.  This allows you the creative freedom to make your bold pip shapes while still retaining the functionality of a standard design.  I've seen this done before to good effect, especially in decks where the art is a primary focus.

And Sarah - for the "club" shape, you can call them lobes or leaves, either would be an apt description.  The original design it evolved from was the three-leaf clover.  They evolved further into clubs of the kind a caveman might use in the Spanish deck and similar designs, and from there into the wands or staves you see in a tarot deck.  It's a common misconception that the poker deck we use today evolved from the tarot deck - playing cards for the purposes of divination didn't come into being until around the time of the Renaissance, while playing cards had existed in Europe for a few centuries before that and are believed to have been invented around the 9th century in China, where people used actual currency as the cards with which they played!

My personal theory on decks like the Spanish and skat/durok designs is that playing cards were very expensive to produce in the pre-printing press days, and remained not entirely affordable until mass production began in the late 19th century.  One way to make the game a little more affordable would be to make a deck that required fewer cards!  Spanish decks are typically not more than 48 cards while a durok or skat deck can be as few as 32.

[8lack8ear]

Hi guys, thanks for all the feed back. We are taking it on board and are having some real "robust" discussions. Readability of the indices not with standing, we though we would show you what the Aces look like in what we believe to be almost the final form. We have a long road to travel yet with all the court cards the jokers and the tuck box still to be done and and would like some feed back on the Art and overall picture.

[Don Boyer]

Hi guys, thanks for all the feed back. We are taking it on board and are having some real "robust" discussions. Readability of the indices not with standing, we though we would show you what the Aces look like in what we believe to be almost the final form. We have a long road to travel yet with all the court cards the jokers and the tuck box still to be done and and would like some feed back on the Art and overall picture.

For better visibility, push the indices closer to the corner.  If possible, make the value appear at the same width as the suit pip below it.

In the faces of a standard deck, the index is pushed into the border, not found in the artwork.  The index is of a uniform size on all the cards.  The value letter or number are the same width and double the height of the suit pip - and for "10," both digits together are the same width as any single letter/digit of the other values.  This is done for ease of use, better concealment of one's hand and quick recognition.

[8lack8ear]

Hi Don, Thanks. Yes we do need to work on uniformity and spacing a bit more. Its a "process" like my wife would say. This is our very first project like this ever, and the first time Aran and I are working together, so every thing is a leaning process. We missed the index being inside the border completely, thanks for that.
.

[Don Boyer]

Hi Don, Thanks. Yes we do need to work on uniformity and spacing a bit more. Its a "process" like my wife would say. This is our very first project like this ever, and the first time Aran and I are working together, so every thing is a leaning process. We missed the index being inside the border completely, thanks for that.
.

Bear in mind that what I said applies to a standard design.  Standard designs are standard and popular because they work and people like them.  That's not to say that you have to slavishly follow the standard, but like any rule of design, if you're going to break it, you should have a good reason as to why and it should show in the work.

[8lack8ear]

We thought we'd give you guys a peek at the progress we have made. Thanks Don for all the great feedback and advice. The Stone background may still change you will see that its not the same in all the cards and we are plying around with the sepia to try and get it just so. We also have to fix the image sizes so they are all the same, again just seeing what works specially with the Aces.   

[Don Boyer]

We thought we'd give you guys a peek at the progress we have made. Thanks Don for all the great feedback and advice. The Stone background may still change you will see that its not the same in all the cards and we are plying around with the sepia to try and get it just so. We also have to fix the image sizes so they are all the same, again just seeing what works specially with the Aces.

Experiment with backgrounds like wood, tanned leather, finished stone, etc.  Finished stone would be a good theme match.

Also experiment with the angles of the cross-lines in the index letters and numbers.  The A in the Ace looks very close to the Q in the Queen - swapping the angle will visually differentiate them a little more and not alter the theme.  I know you're working on a thematic design for those characters, but you really don't want them looking too much like each other - if you look at a standard pack, there's some combinations you'd never see in a typeface or a font used in a magazine article or a word processor, but they aid in making the indices visually distinct from each other and instantly recognizable.  And yes, you can use CURVES now and then!  Imagine stone arches...    You could even add a serif in the shape of a keystone!

[8lack8ear]

Hi Guys, we are very close to a final design and was hoping to get some last minute feed back.

[8lack8ear]

And here are the Jokers and card back. let us know what you think.

[Cardfool]

I'm on board!  Who are you going with as the printer?

[8lack8ear]

Hi Cardfool, We are very happy to hear that, thank you! I'm leaning heavenly toward Legends Playing cards, but the 3 month turnaround time is a bit of a issue. Its still up for discussion, we have gotten initial quotes from both LPCC and APCC. any advice from you guys would also be very welcome.