Playing Cards
I’ve always had a fondness for cars. The illustrations could range from simple to complex and I’d still find myself admiring their own uniqueness. I can also never seem to stop myself from shuffling any set that’s found its way in front of me, so when I set about designing this deck and box, I swore I could feel them in my hands before I even began.
Sketches
I knew right from the start that I wanted the cards to be in a limited palette that was reversible for the different suits. As a long-time fantasy fan, I loved the idea of a flock of tiny dragons taking over this deck. The image was that they’d be adding the suit symbols to their hoards, collecting them as the numbers increased. I made a series of quick illustrations that showed their interactions with the varying numbers of symbols with the face cards being the only ones that showed dragons, drakes, and wyrms having eyes.
Digital Drafts
There was a bit of difficulty bringing the sketches into rendered color Between the line art, layering, and limited two-color-per-card palette, I had to be very deliberate with my line placement. The orientation of the suit symbols was another hurdle as the higher the numbers climbed, the harder it was to place them all together in an effective, eye-catching manner, and, since the symbols varied in shape, orientations that worked well for one suit wouldn’t always carry over for the rest.
Final Draft
The silhouette illustrations worked well with the design as a whole. The lettering on the cards and the box gives that fantasy feel and the simplicity of the illustrations are emphasized by the solid color backgrounds. As this is the first card set I’ve made, it was a very engaging project to undertake, and there were many aspects of production I had to consider, like the inside color of the box, how the flaps would hold together, and where to sacrifice design for readability. I’d like the chance to design more card sets in the future though.
