Wedding Playing Card Design

[52friends_and_me]

I am getting married this year in Oct. and I thought it would be cool to design a deck of cards to go along with the colors and feel of our wedding. I plan to get these printed as the gifts I give my groomsmen, I want to give them one deck in a bottle, and one without the bottle. I have only started designing the back so far and I wanted some critiques concerning what I have so far. I am very new to this and I am still learning.

[Don Boyer]

I am getting married this year in Oct. and I thought it would be cool to design a deck of cards to go along with the colors and feel of our wedding. I plan to get these printed as the gifts I give my groomsmen, I want to give them one deck in a bottle, and one without the bottle. I have only started designing the back so far and I wanted some critiques concerning what I have so far. I am very new to this and I am still learning.

It's nice, but if you want the gift to be more memorable, a professional photo of the happy couple on the back might be better than just some initials and a ring design.  As a deck in a bottle, it would be perfect, assuming the tuck box has a window in the back or has the back design printed on the tuck - it would be a cool alternative to a framed photo!  Your design isn't bad, it's just somewhat bland in comparison to the photo option.  If you insist on having a two-way back, take a panorama photo and arrange it twice on the card back, top and bottom, each half rotationally symmetrical to the other.

At the very least, consider a color other than pink.  You're giving this deck to "the guys," and most guys don't favor pink as a color for playing cards.  Try red, green, blue, brown, gray, silver, black, etc.

[52friends_and_me]

Thanks for the advice. I only choose pink and gold because those are the wedding colors. I was wanting more of a two way design other than a photo. I am having trouble with filling space without making the design cluttered and I would like to improve on that. Any other design advice you can think to give that I can make improvements on?

[Sarah F]

What a fun idea. Here are my questions...

What do your invitations look like? Are there elements you can pull in from that? My thoughts are that I feel like since these are for a wedding, they could get a little more elegant. If you were set on using your initials, there are so many lovely examples of elegant, typographic inspiration out there. I think you could have a lot of fun with the letters of your initials and integrate it more with the rings in the middle. And I've never attempted this, but always thought it was cool: Ambigrams. It's like a palindrome but for typographic design (and how appropriate for playing card's 2 way designs...). http://designshack.net/articles/graphics/how-to-design-an-ambigram/

As for color, I would also suggest finding a 3rd neutral color that works well with both colors, and then bring in the yellow and pink as accents.

And if you're giving the groomsmen two decks each - maybe make a poker set so one maybe was a little heavier on the pink, and the other heavier on the yellow?

[Don Boyer]

What a fun idea. Here are my questions...

What do your invitations look like? Are there elements you can pull in from that? My thoughts are that I feel like since these are for a wedding, they could get a little more elegant. If you were set on using your initials, there are so many lovely examples of elegant, typographic inspiration out there. I think you could have a lot of fun with the letters of your initials and integrate it more with the rings in the middle. And I've never attempted this, but always thought it was cool: Ambigrams. It's like a palindrome but for typographic design (and how appropriate for playing card's 2 way designs...). http://designshack.net/articles/graphics/how-to-design-an-ambigram/

As for color, I would also suggest finding a 3rd neutral color that works well with both colors, and then bring in the yellow and pink as accents.

And if you're giving the groomsmen two decks each - maybe make a poker set so one maybe was a little heavier on the pink, and the other heavier on the yellow?

I'm not as big a fan of ambigrams - there was a popular trend about two years ago for them but it kind of burned itself out.  I think a clean, elegant design with the initials in perhaps a font matching the wedding invitations would be a splendid choice - incorporating elements of the invitation, it would be hard to go wrong, I think.  The color options you suggested are good as well - perhaps one deck could even be yellow without any pink, the other pink without any yellow, making them a real easily-distinguished poker set while still having both of the wedding colors.  It would mean you'd need an extra deck to give out decks-in-bottles as groomsmen gifts, but it would be worth it and a poker pair is a good gift for a guy, especially one into cards in the first place.

[52friends_and_me]

Sorry, I have been away from the computer for a while. We haven't made our invitations yet (kinda off to a slow start) but I like the idea of incorporating some of the design elements. Im not too attached to this design so I am open for changes. I would like to make it more manly. I will give the third color thing a go and report back!

[JackofDiamonds]

Sorry, I have been away from the computer for a while. We haven't made our invitations yet (kinda off to a slow start) but I like the idea of incorporating some of the design elements. Im not too attached to this design so I am open for changes. I would like to make it more manly. I will give the third color thing a go and report back!

I think it's important to remember that, while the rest of the wedding might be about the bride, the groomsmen's gifts are fundamentally about the friendship between the groom and groomsmen. Especially if you're hoping they'll use the cards.