Day of the Dead playing cards

[kraken]

Hi guys,

To introduce myself: Sam, from York, UK. Graphic designer by day, playing card enthusiast by night.

Looking for feedback on my cards, my style is bold, clean and simple, it's what i'm known for! Hopefully can take these to Kickstarter. I have set up all the cards, box design still needs to happen.

Any questions and advice appreciated!

[Don Boyer]

Hi guys,

To introduce myself: Sam, from York, UK. Graphic designer by day, playing card enthusiast by night.

Looking for feedback on my cards, my style is bold, clean and simple, it's what i'm known for! Hopefully can take these to Kickstarter. I have set up all the cards, box design still needs to happen.

Any questions and advice appreciated!

The basics of how you put the cards together are pretty good - like you said, bold, clean and simple.

Bold, clean and simple DON'T WORK WELL with your chosen theme, Dia de los Muertos.  It's like trying to make Minimalist Baroque - two great styles that are practically polar opposites.

Having a one-way back design will usually hurt sales - some collectors tolerate them but poker players generally avoid them, lest they be accused of using the one-way back for cheating.  Printing words on the card back is often a kiss of death for a design - do people need to be hit over the head to know that it's a Day of the Dead deck?  Put the name on the Ace of Spades and that's it.

Day of the Dead has been VERY HEAVILY DONE in recent months (hell, even recent years).  Everyone remembers the first team to reach the peak of Mount Everest, but no one remembers the 37th team unless they did something spectacular when they got there (besides dying, of course)...  If your design doesn't absolutely blow the others out of the water, it'll be a tough sell in comparison.

My best advice for you would be to ditch the sugar skulls and stick with what's working - a minimal but bold design.  Minimalism's been done to death as well, but usually with teeny-tiny little pips and indices, rarely with something bold and imposing.  That's your design's strength - play to your strengths.  You could take minimalism into a daring new direction, perhaps even start a trend.

I can't say this enough - make a KILLER box design.  There are collectors out there that buy literally for the packaging alone, never even opening the box to look at the cards inside.  A great box will give your sales a significant bump upward.

[kraken]

Thank you Don, I was hoping you'd reply to give me direction. I will take your advice on board, as I have invested time into the sugar skull part of the design I'll keep them for this design. I will change the rear of the cards to feature a 'both-way' design and will ditch the wording all together.

I will try to create a killer box design, thank you for that info!

Back to the drawing board!

[Don Boyer]

Thank you Don, I was hoping you'd reply to give me direction. I will take your advice on board, as I have invested time into the sugar skull part of the design I'll keep them for this design. I will change the rear of the cards to feature a 'both-way' design and will ditch the wording all together.

I will try to create a killer box design, thank you for that info!

Back to the drawing board!

If you're absolutely married to the sugar skull design, then make the rest of the design work with it.  Use typefaces, pip shapes, etc. that complement the theme, and do ALL of it in some way that's better than the rest or somehow stands out from the rest in a GOOD way.  Otherwise, it will be hard to generate any excitement for your deck and people won't come flocking to it in great numbers.

Believe it or not, that doesn't necessarily mean your deck won't succeed - but it does severely limit you in terms of how you can make the deck, because it's the difference between being able to set and meet a $10,000 goal or merely a $1,000 goal.  With a $10,000 goal within your grasp, you can pick nearly any printer you want - exceed that goal by a significant amount and you can add some sweet bells and whistles to the design, like a casino-grade stock, an embossed box, a custom deck seal, etc.  But if your design isn't strong enough to raise $10,000, you can still get it made for $1,000 - but that means going with a less-expensive digital print shop rather than a top-of-the-line company using an offset press.  Your design's almost guaranteed to succeed at a $1K goal and many digital print shops allow for tiny print runs, sometimes even as small as a single deck.  But because the quality's not as good, you're already hamstringing yourself to some degree by limiting what people will be willing to pay for it and what people will even be interested in it.

The safer bet for you would be to tread into new territory - leave sugar skulls to the other wannabes and imitators while making a more original, unique design that will grab people's eyes and make them want to open their wallets.  It's the difference between competing to get the bartender's attention in a crowded, packed nightclub where there's people at least three deep surrounding the bar shouting for drinks at once and at a quiet club where you're one of the few people in the room.  Original alone doesn't do it - it has to be original and good - but original is far better than making yet another design in a well-worn theme that's been done several times before, sometimes by stellar artists.

[kraken]

Well I did go back to the drawing board.

Took on board all that you said and had a good design session in the studio inbetween projects!

Launched the project yesterday!

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/samwatola/min-a-minimalist-deck-of-playing-cards

[Don Boyer]

Dude?  What happened to the big, simple indices and pips?  They really set your design apart from the pack.  It you thought sugar skulls were overdone, there's more minimalist decks with super-tiny print than you can shake a stick at.  But NO ONE has done minimal with big, cool designs like you had on your spot cards.

Your design is terribly simple and many people won't be interested in throwing down US$15 for a deck like that.  The issue with minimalist and tiny print is that there's a whole lot of "white space" and the overall design is so simple, it doesn't have the attractive artwork of other decks and comes across as being very simple to make.  The maker of the Fontaine deck used to brag that it took him about 15 minutes or something like that to make his design - he managed to sell it, but more because he had a certain degree of celebrity within the magic, cardistry and card collecting community before he made his deck - he made a video blog for Theory11.  But compare that to the Jones Playing Cards Deck or the WhiteKnuckle deck - those literally took YEARS and were all hand-drawn before being scanned into a computer and redrawn with a stylus and drawing tablet.  THAT'S a deck that's worth $15 or even more.