This year's theme was inspired by a trip to Morocco and the immersive journey the culture springs on you. There was a lot of getting lost there but then discovering new things that you never would have found before. It inspired me to design the function of this series around the topics of 'ACCESS' and 'DISCOVERY'. I won't give the full presentation because most of you have already seen it but for those that haven't I did want to convey that origin point since it was the foundation of the design.
The mantra for the series is to "UNLOCK THE GATE".
The series is designed into 3 deck types (or you can think of them as "stages")
1) Locked Gate
2) Unlocked Gate
3) Palace Gate
The meaning of "unlocking the gate" changes in meaning as you progress through the stages. The idea was to create a collection that would work for every type of collector in which you can achieve the goal regardless of which part of the journey you were in.
STAGE 1 - LOCKED GATE (White Boxes)
You're in Morocco and you're thrilled at the beauty but you find the door is locked and can't get in. The deck features no half moon to flip open the deck top. The only way to get in is to "unlock the gate".
The keyhole diecut acts as a track in which collector's can move their thumb through to reveal the beautiful doors to the palace. You've unlocked the gate!
It's a fun ergonomic design by itself that I might use for future decks. The exterior box is made of a matte linen stock for contrast to the interior made of shimmering opalescent stock (which is important later on). As previous years the tucks are hand stamped with intaglio gold and silver engravings.
STAGE 2 - UNLOCKED GATE (Black Boxes)
You can see see room and movement behind the keyhole this time. You open it and seem to be at another gate where everything looks the same around you. You go around and see nothing but closed doors. Alas, you are lost again. If only you could discover the secrets so close. (Pardon the quality, it's a quick phone video but it's legit unedited that's-exactly-how-it-looks experience which is pretty wild.) Super fun to play with.
[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xRo7Dck ... e=youtu.be[/youtube]
This is a fun discovery moment in which the interior holds a magical mirror. The idea is that even though you know where to look doesn't necessarily mean you know how to look. When you shine a light below the arch, the mirror will completely disappear to do a secondary reveal of a secret room behind the veil. Congratulations, you've unlocked the gate!
I was pretty happy with the mirror implementation. Admittedly I had a LOT of moving parts in the initial prototype to make this work before I managed to ditch it and come up with such a clean and simple solution.
STAGE 3 - PALACE GATE (Green + Gold Box)
You look inside and see that finally the front and the back of the gate are unlocked and you can see the palace interior. You can see the tiling and the wood ceilings and windows. But when you look closer you realize the interior seems to be bigger than the exterior.
The mirror duplicates the interior 1 deck width to make it a 2 deck width. The printing on the interior was designed as a half so that it would mirror to create the full room. This is honestly a fun effect for your brain to grapple with but it's a red herring for a bigger secret.
CARDS
Morocco culture and their architecture beautifully expresses themselves through these patterns due to the constraint of not being able to represent people. It's probably the most dominant trait you'll first notice when comparing to other countries. Think of churches in Europe where there's statutes, paintings, and windows galore featuring figures. The whole basis of the complexity of Moroccan patterns and design throughout all the palaces are based in this one constraint. So to respect that (and also not cross any boundaries I don't feel comfortable crossing) instead of doing court cards I created a custom pattern of all 4 suits that is laid on every card that reveals the correct pips based on the card it is.
The pattern style is similar to the plasterwork that runs between arches and thought it particularly perfect for the composition of the face cards. I ended up liking and keeping the archways on the face. It allows the deck to be read right to left which is also how the Moroccan alphabet is read. It was an unintended but delightful surprise and was strong enough to the story that I ended up keeping it.
MOROCCAN TILE ZELLIJ BACK DESIGNS
Think of making a picture pixel by pixel, but you have to make the pixels, and all the pixels are different shapes, and if you mess one up, the rest of the pattern gets out of sync). It's incredibly beautiful, difficult, and embedded in the culture so much so that I wanted to show the differences.
It was an extremely important aspect of the culture and I found it necessary to shrink my initial larger print run into mini smaller print runs to better tell the story of the pattern progression. I admittedly lost economies of scale on it which isn't necessarily the smartest thing for a fundraiser deck but it's literally one of the last places in the world where this trade still exists and is so core to the aesthetic that I found it mandatory to include to keep true to the story.
There are 3 separate print runs to show 3 different designs to help show the value in different types of pattern. There's radial, row based, and then a radial design with stroke. It represents the value of the lost trade of zellij which is hand made tilework.
For the locked decks the cards are standard, but for the unlocked deck stages and up (the ones with mirrors) they feature a beautiful porcelain-like tile pattern across the backs that absolutely freaking make this deck. It feels like cool tile under your hands and when you compare it to the rougher engraving outside it's a fantastic change in experience. When you're playing games with the cards spread out on the table it feels like you're building a Morocco floor in front of you. It's super cool. You're building your own piece of the palace like a mini-zellij apprentice
I apologize for the long post and there is more to this but I needed to get this out here now sooner than later given how close NPCCD is
I just wanted to also clarify the structure of everything in this initial post and the story of it. There are 3 differently built decks. Each one builds on each other. If you saw the convention presentation you know there's more but all that's needed for the full palace experience is 3 decks. Each gate you get is a different deck as well so it's a fantastic encapsulated collection all around. You have the opportunity to build out your palace by adding more decks to create a full 6-deck palace (but only 3 is necessary for a "working set").
I'll post more tomorrow and hopefully provide a tutorial vid as well. This project has a LOT of stuff going with it so I just wanted to drip it out now for some early digestion. It's a project that was extremely close to me and so I ended up spending a lot more time, money, and energy on creating the collection but it's one I sincerely think will be one of those sets that just stay on the shelf for collectors. I hope this all makes sense. I'll wake up tomorrow and try to complete this post with the rest.
Jesus. I might have to just stick with the standard version.
