Oink Oink playing cards om kickstarter

[theCapraAegagrus]

Literally, you couldn’t do this in 5 min...

Sorry, not sorry, but you're wrong.

This deck (AKA "trash") can be designed in literally < 5 minutes.

[theCapraAegagrus]

They take the same amount of work to be successful.

This isn't a fair comparison. You are comparing years of design theory, artistic ability, and desire to create an experience, to someone who has a great Instagram account. Yes, it can take a lot of work for a cardist to develop a following, but it doesn't mean they should have license to slap clipart on a deck and call it good for the community. And before you say it, yes, I understand that collecting is entirely subjective. Keep in mind, this is my point of view and I understand tastes can vary widely. I've said it before that I am not a cardist.

However, we constantly see thoughtful, innovative, and unique designs barely get funded or miss the funding goal entirely. Then a popular cardist can slap a couple of clipart letters or dots or pigs or squares on the back of a standard deck of cards and make a fortune. Successful? Yes. I guess it boils down to intent. Is the designer looking to create an experience, or create profit. Nothing wrong with capitalism or striving for both goals, but it's hard to see how this deck adds to the community in any meaningful way.

So how does the community prevent this? 1) don't buy the product 2) help the designer out. How many people in this forum bother to message the person who created this and give him a few tips? Maybe even say look we have a place on the UC that you can post to get help with this design. We have plenty of experiance on this board to help make your project the best it can be. I know a few of you do that on occasion but this goes better for the UC community rather than attacking the designer personally. Here is how it appears to go down on this forum.
Step 1: Member posts deck for no other reason than to rally the crew
Step 2: In replies 1-3 someone Trashes the deck.
Step 3: The next comment personally attacks the creator/designer.

This results in these people going along doing what they do then if the deck gets funded ( which some do) two things happen 1) The designer disregards the opinions of UC members from that point forward so any hope of correcting the problem is gone. 2) They keep doing the same stupid **** over and over.
Meanwhile, people leave UC for instagram in part because they get constructive feedback on their projects without the personal attacks. Speaking of which I'm going to go post an upcoming project in the design section so I don't find my deck in this section again

Well, I mean, you can put lipstick on a pig...

If a creator ACTUALLY desired designing something with a salvageable concept by way of advice - we typically give it. The problem is, most of these people are lazy turds. I'm not going to design a deck FOR someone. What about that guy who recently designed that Egyptian deck but switched printers? His 1st campaign failed, we gave him PLENTY of advice, and the project funded!

I will call shit out when I see it.

[akicer]

I don't think I want to give advice to every designer randomly shows up on kickstarter. I think the better way to spend time is to give advice to who has designed a product which is at least 70% done and hoping the advice will make the product closer to great. Spending time on giving advice to newbee is not something I want to do, bring a 2/10 deck to 5/10 is a waste of time imo.

Deep in my mind I don't believe there are that many talented designer in the playing cards community, but there are way more bad designers just want to make some quick money with their cheap design and I don't want to waste my time on giving advice to them (and doesn't look like they want to receive advice). Instead, I'd rather call their product PoS, which they actually are.

Again that's just my own way of looking at those things.

[theCapraAegagrus]

I don't think I want to give advice to every designer randomly shows up on kickstarter. I think the better way to spend time is to give advice to who has designed a product which is at least 70% done and hoping the advice will make the product closer to great. Spending time on giving advice to newbee is not something I want to do, bring a 2/10 deck to 5/10 is a waste of time imo.

Deep in my mind I don't believe there are that many talented designer in the playing cards community, but there are way more bad designers just want to make some quick money with their cheap design and I don't want to waste my time on giving advice to them (and doesn't look like they want to receive advice). Instead, I'd rather call their product PoS, which they actually are.

Again that's just my own way of looking at those things.

100% agreed.

[Justin O.]

I'm not going to design a deck FOR someone.

See, I absolutely would! But that feeds back into the problem. As Akicer said, I don’t think these designers have any desire in making a quality deck with a good design, it’s just about money. It’s not even about brand promotion, which I would be more lenient with, the only way you know this deck is supporting/promoting the cardist making it is if you are already a fan of them. In the, what..? Coming up on 10 years I have been a part of UC, and on Aethercards before that, I have given mountains of good, positive, supportive advice to creators. Before and after launch of a project. I have never found that to be a problem here, there are a lot of users with a lot of good things to say. Where it is warranted. It isn’t here.

[Harvonsgard]

I know that most of the comments here are meant more in general, but can we stop calling every Kickstarter project founder a card designer, pretty please!? I mean, I fix my flat tires and stuff on my mountain bike myself, but this dosn’t make me a bike mechanic. I bake cakes for my relatives occasionally, that doesn’t makes me a baker.
It is kind of a slap in the face to true card designers. Just a random thought.

[MagikFingerz]

I know that most of the comments here are meant more in general, but can we stop calling every Kickstarter project founder a card designer, pretty please!? I mean, I fix my flat tires and stuff on my mountain bike myself, but this dosn’t make me a bike mechanic. I bake cakes for my relatives occasionally, that doesn’t makes me a baker.
It is kind of a slap in the face to true card designers. Just a random thought.

Unless we're talking about a protected title, isn't the bar for being labeled as any of those things just to be making money from it? Other than Jackson (and Lotrek?), I don't think there are many full-time card designers out there.

[Harvonsgard]

Unless we're talking about a protected title, isn't the bar for being labeled as any of those things just to be making money from it? Other than Jackson (and Lotrek?), I don't think there are many full-time card designers out there.

Of course, the criterias are up to one’s personal definition. I personally would refrain from setting the bar too low (plus like in this Oink oink case we don’t even have the making money criteria fullfilled, even if the campaign funds it is not like they really make money from it). I would add as a second criteria that one has to have a bit of an reputation/body of work to vouch for certain design skills or a serious dedication at least.
By the way, besides the big guys you named we have Randy, montenzi, David, Fud, Guru, Gio of course, Lorenzo and for example I would call Jocu a playing card designer aswell, since they show a serious dedication towards playing cards.
Again, just my thoughts. Everybody is free to define these things for himself.

[Adonael]

According to UC, anyone with a yellow name is a card designer. I don't know what the bar for becoming a verified designer is (maybe a mod can chip in), but I always assumed one successful KS campaign, or printed deck readily available for purchase. Yeah, not exactly a high bar, but you can't factor personal taste into things like this or it would get messy real quick.

[theCapraAegagrus]

Only a sith deals in absolutes.

[MagikFingerz]

According to UC, anyone with a yellow name is a card designer. I don't know what the bar for becoming a verified designer is (maybe a mod can chip in), but I always assumed one successful KS campaign, or printed deck readily available for purchase. Yeah, not exactly a high bar, but you can't factor personal taste into things like this or it would get messy real quick.

Your assumption is correct

[hsbc]

Other than Jackson (and Lotrek?), I don't think there are many full-time card designers out there.

By the way, besides the big guys you named we have Randy, montenzi, David, Fud, Guru, Gio of course, Lorenzo and for example I would call Jocu a playing card designer aswell

I think the keyword here is "full-time" - Jackson is the only person who currently is able to make a living doing nothing but card designing. And he's got years of decks as a back catalog, a monthly subscription with three variants, an upcoming bimonthly subscription, the new Pi Slice series, upcoming LoTR and Mistborn projects... my point is, I can't imagine that there's a big profit margin on just one deck, so as a designer you've really got to have a customer base and constant output for it to work financially. And for all we know Jackson might do uncredited commercial work now and then??

Lotrek also seems to do nothing but cards, but he also prints them and makes tucks and brick boxes. (How long until KWP has an in-house letterpress machine to make their own tucks? )

And then of course successful cardists are a whole other animal

I'm totally fascinated with the logistics and economics of all this

[Decknowledgy]

Lorenzo is full time as well; Gio, not so sure

[Eric Lee]

Amazing how cardistry threads quickly go into something different. From Anyone WW hype becoming a shoe thread and now the Oink Oink thread becoming a deep discussion on the definition of playing card design. We're certainly a quirky, easily distracted bunch here and I wouldn't have it any other way!

[theCapraAegagrus]

...(How long until KWP has an in-house letterpress machine to make their own tucks? )

This already happened before. He sold the tuck press on eBay IIRC.

[Harvonsgard]

Yup, Verum Videre tuck boxes (from the first versions) were produced by the man himself.

[Thirdway Industries]

Lorenzo is full time as well; Gio, not so sure

FOR NOW Part-time playing cards designer

[Eric Lee]

FOR NOW Part-time playing cards designer

FOR NOW? My wallet will weep....wail openly when you go full time, Gio. You're already putting out so many great decks now. Heaven help our bank accounts when that happens!

[Adonael]

Considering what he can do now, if Gio ever went full-time I would expect a massive project telling a truly epic millennia-long saga spread across 12 (a brick for just one series!) decks from the ancient history to the far flung future of an original planet/civilisation! Where deities and empires rise and fall over the ages, adapting to the loss of magic and the rise of technology, then from maximums of technology (such as dyson spheres) to a rediscovery of magic and a combination of the two to push at the limits of reality itself and other dimensions. Metallic inks and foil on both sides of every card for every deck of course

[Thirdway Industries]

Haha let's see I don't know when I'll decide to became a fulltime cards designer.

It's a bit risky, but I have to say that make cards made me happier than any other job I have done in the past, so someday I'll do that.

Anyways, I don't think that going fulltime means I'll "double" my production of decks. I might be able to design a little more, but design cards is stressful and I need to be 100% focused, I can't do that effectively for a lot of days straight. If I'll go independent I'll also might do other things like tarots, board games and other crazy stuff.

@Adonael - this seems a fun series ^_^

[Justin O.]

like tarots

like tarots

like tarots

Uhm... yes please.