Minimal 2014 Playing Cards - The Blue Crown 28 Oct 8PM EST

[Sparkz]

Thanks for the info Randy

............kind of regret posting the image in the first place, really don't see the need to be calling out Randy if he's just clarifying what may be going on. The opinions about why a designer shoud or shlouldn't use clip art is a different story, and hardly has anything to do with Randy

[Stockholm17]

does a designer need a clipart from shuttershock to draw 2 monochromatic palm trees? O_O

[vasta41]

Thanks for the info Randy

............kind of regret posting the image in the first place, really don't see the need to be calling out Randy if he's just clarifying what may be going on. The opinions about why a designer shoud or shlouldn't use clip art is a different story, and hardly has anything to do with Randy

I agree. Merz clip-arts cards all the time and there's no merz bashing here. That's not to say he's not mostly made fun of for clip-arting all his decks and charging a premium for them. But Malibu or not, don't hate the player, hate the game. Buy 'em if you want, make fun of them if you don't. I'm sure Randy is aware of merz's reputation around here and doesn't want to follow suit.

[RandyButterfield]

With all due respect Randall, Malibu bottle is one of the most distinguishable alcool bottle there is.
Trying to cover for Edo Huang here is insulting, of course Malibu lawyers won't do a thing, I think they would even judge that this deck is beneficial for them (free marketing weeeee!).
Also, I'm sure you noticed that the vector image on shutterstock lacks colors, so if Edo Huang did but this design and colored it, do you really think that EXACTLY matching the old malibu logo is a coincidence? Please ...

Actually, I don't know Edo at all and am not defending the use of the image (like I said, I was GUESSING that Edo didn't realize it was the same as the Malibu trees). I'm defending the guys at The Blue Crown. I believe they didn't realize the Malibu reference at all. All they did was hire someone to design a Deck for them.

Blue Crown gets bashed like crazy on the UC (long before Jackson ever did). I feel like I need to defend them, or no one else on here will.

I have no part of the Minimal Deck.

thanks, Randy

[PlayingCardz]

With all due respect Randall, Malibu bottle is one of the most distinguishable alcool bottle there is.
Trying to cover for Edo Huang here is insulting, of course Malibu lawyers won't do a thing, I think they would even judge that this deck is beneficial for them (free marketing weeeee!).
Also, I'm sure you noticed that the vector image on shutterstock lacks colors, so if Edo Huang did but this design and colored it, do you really think that EXACTLY matching the old malibu logo is a coincidence? Please ...

Actually, I don't know Edo at all and am not defending the use of the image (like I said, I was GUESSING that Edo didn't realize it was the same as the Malibu trees). I'm defending the guys at The Blue Crown. I believe they didn't realize the Malibu reference at all. All they did was hire someone to design a Deck for them.

Blue Crown gets bashed like crazy on the UC (long before Jackson ever did). I feel like I need to defend them, or no one else on here will.

I have no part of the Minimal Deck.

thanks, Randy

I fully agree, I've said it several times in the past, the guys at TBC are great, they released some of my favorite decks and some of the deals they offered remains unmatched.
I thought that you were defending Edo, sorry about that mate

[Marcus]

Was just about to say that there was something retro about the Minimal deck's back design that I liked, now I know why.

[volantangel]

I dont think the real fault lies with TBC, you cant really blame them for not recoginsing plagarism (even if its a pretty famous logo, and they ought to have some form of checks in place), i think this is a case of misplaced trust, where TBC trusts Edo as a designer to come up with a original design, given that he is a established designer they have worked with previously.

The fault here lies with Edo, for entiring using clipart without even doing the due checks, its unfortunate that he chose a very recognisable image, otherwise we would never have found out. Now im very tempted to find out if the nautical decks were designed with a similar technique

[Cbkimble]

These were sold out when I placed my order but I did manage to pick up the last 4 ornates and a Brazil deck with the discount.

[edohuang]

dear all.
my name is edo huang.

I'm here to clarify the design i did for the Minimal Decks, alex told me that he really like palm trees and I start doing research on google about palm trees, i did some rough sketches and I'm not buying vector stocks, clip arts, etc.
i found one small images that look suitable for this and I redrawn the logo, and send 2-3 difference logo to him and let him choose and he choose this final logo and to be honest i don't even know what logo is this, since I'm not a drinker and collecting bottles of alcohols

if you really don't like this please don't buy it and I'm sorry for causing this problem.
if you like it please enjoy the decks coz i put my time and effort doing it and later if you got the deck u can see all faces and courts are rearranges and the arrcos court i redrawn by hand and u can see the lines from the cards itself.

i promise this is not gonna happen in future release and please let me know if you have any question

cheers
Edo Huang

With all due respect Randall, Malibu bottle is one of the most distinguishable alcool bottle there is.
Trying to cover for Edo Huang here is insulting, of course Malibu lawyers won't do a thing, I think they would even judge that this deck is beneficial for them (free marketing weeeee!).
Also, I'm sure you noticed that the vector image on shutterstock lacks colors, so if Edo Huang did but this design and colored it, do you really think that EXACTLY matching the old malibu logo is a coincidence? Please ...

Actually, I don't know Edo at all and am not defending the use of the image (like I said, I was GUESSING that Edo didn't realize it was the same as the Malibu trees). I'm defending the guys at The Blue Crown. I believe they didn't realize the Malibu reference at all. All they did was hire someone to design a Deck for them.

Blue Crown gets bashed like crazy on the UC (long before Jackson ever did). I feel like I need to defend them, or no one else on here will.

I have no part of the Minimal Deck.

thanks, Randy

[Stockholm17]

Hi Edo,

look, as designer I can tell you two things straight forward ( I just have 15 years experience on the field).

1. If I have to do a deck related to an European tour and the client tells me that he wants palms, well, he can do the design by himself and go to hell.
2. the palms are exactly the same as the Malibu logo (colors and shapes), it is impossible that it just happened by chance. We are not talking about primitive shapes.

It´s not matter of like/dislike the design and buy/not-buy it.
It´s totally a different issue. We are talking about design, originality, creativity, quality, ethic, reputation and professionalism.

Sorry if I am a bit too passionate and straight forward in this reply, but that's just wrong.
You and that genius of Pandrea will loose in reputation. Just be more careful next time and select your clients.


best,

[BenMorrisRains]

^Yep, no way this was just an amazing, amazing situation of independent creation. The images are identical, end of story. I CAN see how maybe you didn't know it was the Malibu logo, and found the image on shutterstock or whatever, but look: Now you know. Trying to make up a back story about sketches that are identical down to the leaves isn't really helping your case at all. Appropriate response would have been "Yep, I found out about this after the fact and I apologize for this occurrence..." or something along those lines...

[chach]

Sorry if I am a bit too passionate and straight forward in this reply, but that's just wrong.
You and that genius of Pandrea will loose in reputation. Just be more careful next time and select your clients.


best,

This is the important part here. I used to like TBC, or at least didn't dislike them. I'm sorry Edo, but the logos are absolutely the same so don't piss on my boots and tell me it's raining by saying it was just some random happenstance that one of the three sketches you submitted was the exact same as the logo from Malibu rum / shutterstock. Coincidences like that just don't happen, I'm sure you'd have a far better chance of winning the lottery a few times over than to randomly design a palm tree logo that is the same thing as an already existing one down to the exact same number of leaves. Then to top off this crazy random happenstance, it was the one selected out of all your submissions to your client. I was willing to overlook all that and would have bought a deck had paypal worked yesterday, but after your story there I gotta say sorry sir, but you've just joined the ranks of Daniel Madison in my opinion, and that isn't good company as he's an admitted crook, con and shyster.

[Marcus]

.

[vasta41]

At first I didn't care if it was the Malibu logo or not. But now due to the artist's lies and defiance, I'm so happy I didn't buy these. Just admit it! You've be caught. Boy does this leave a bad taste in my mouth...

[Reylek]

Hi everyone. I wanted to pop in and hopefully clear up a little confusion. I know we all love a good conspiracy, but things in this case are a lot more simple. While some people seem to think we took a look at a bottle of rum and said, “Ah ha, that will make a great deck!” that’s not the case whatsoever.

Thanks to Sparkz for posting the image. When myself, Alex, and Edo saw it we were actually quite surprised, as we did not realize the correlation to the old Malibu logo. Alex has been showing this design online and in person for months to hundreds of people, and Sparkz was the very first person to point out the match with the Malibu logo.

When Alex decided he wanted a deck to accompany his new lecture tour, Edo was on a very tight deadline to get the project done in the allotted time frame. On any given project, we usually give the artist some broad guidelines in terms of a theme or vibe, but leave the rest up to their artistic sensibilities, and then we’ll make edits and suggestions based on their drafts.

Alex requested an international travel theme (hence all of the stamps and such on the front of the tuck) and also mentioned that he’d like for palm trees to be part of the design. True, palm trees are not as ubiquitous in Europe and the UK as they are in Florida, but they can be found!

I think some of you are misinterpreting Edo's reply earlier in the thread. He is saying that he initially did rough sketches of his concept. When Alex approved the concept, Edo did some digging on stock image sites and found a few palm tree options, which he then presented to Alex as choices for the final design. What you see in the final product its the option that Alex liked best.

If you look around on stock image sites, you can find this palm in color and B&W, such as the one Randy posted above. Edo purchased a color one and used that to create the back design of the card. As mentioned above, he made some small modifications to it to add the separation between the trees and the sun. He had no idea it had previously been part of the Malibu logo. He sent us the back design, we liked it. Being on a tight deadline, we moved forward with production.

So in terms of anything being stolen - no, sorry. The image was purchased from an appropriate vendor and is all clear for legal use. All other elements were designed by Edo himself. I don't think Edo is trying to deny the use of stock images at all for the palm.

Now, in regard to the use of stock images in general when it comes to deck design, that’s obviously another topic. It’s not something that we encourage or expect. When Edo showed us the designs, we had no reason to believe they were anything other than his original work. That is what we expect from all designers we work with, and usually find that it goes without saying that major elements of a deck design should not come from stock images. If anything, this allows us to learn from this situation and be sure that any time we’re working with a designer in the future, we can give them the “NO STOCK IMAGES” note.

We’ve had a discussion with Edo and he assures us it will not happen again. Good enough for me, we are all human and all make mistakes from time to time. We have another design from Edo that you will all see before the end of 2014 and he assures me it’s all created by him. I think you guys will dig it. He’s a talented and creative artist with plenty of original work up his sleeve.

In terms of the Minimal name - the deck is named after Alex’s lecture. The core structure of his lecture involves his thoughts and theories on minimalism in magic performance - stripping things down to their bare bones and simplifying them to give an audience a powerful and memorable experience. These ideas can be performed with something as simple as a NOC deck or as fancy as an ORNATE Obsidian deck. So the Minimal name is more about Alex’s performance style and the content of the lecture, not the design of the deck itself.

I hope that clears things up! As much as some folks would like to believe that we’re a bunch of criminal masterminds, sitting in our big leather chairs plotting ways to block out the sun, we’re just a small group of people trying to make cool decks of cards and magic tricks.

[Marcus]

I'm here to clarify the design i did for the Minimal Decks, alex told me that he really like palm trees and I start doing research on google about palm trees, i did some rough sketches and I'm not buying vector stocks, clip arts, etc.
i found one small images that look suitable for this and I redrawn the logo, and send 2-3 difference logo to him and let him choose and he choose this final logo and to be honest i don't even know what logo is this, since I'm not a drinker and collecting bottles of alcohols

I think some of you are misinterpreting Edo's reply earlier in the thread. He is saying that he initially did rough sketches of his concept. When Alex approved the concept, Edo did some digging on stock image sites and found a few palm tree options, which he then presented to Alex as choices for the final design. What you see in the final product its the option that Alex liked best.

Thanks for taking the time to respond to this thread, Kevin. I wouldn't say it's very accurate to say that this was misinterpreted as much as it was misphrased, though. However, reading through it with this in mind I can see how it can be read both ways, and the language barrier can cause trouble sometimes.

[Sher]

Thanks for the clarification, Reylek.

[Stockholm17]

yep, thanx Reylek

but I didnt buy the things about the palm trees in Europe, that´s just wrong

[sprouts1115]

@PlayingCardz - I think he likes Randy better. I have noting, but respect for him. I met him at the 52+ convention. And I'm glad he is on his own.

I not going to buy a deck of these cards just out of spite. I was the weird guy at the parties that liked Malibu Rum with milk. Of course, the the milk got less cloudy as the party went on. I use to collect the white bottles.

[Strag]

yep, thanx Reylek

but I didnt buy the things about the palm trees in Europe, that´s just wrong

A quick Google says yes, there are palm trees in Europe.

[jerichoholic]

Pretty ridiculous that these haven't been delivered yet!

[Reylek]

Jerichoholic - totally agree!

As we stated on the product page for Minimals, we expected to begin shipping them on or around November 5th.

Initially we were supposed to receive the main shipment in early October, but there were some delays with the ship making landfall. We can't reschedule when Halloween falls, and fully expected to have the decks in-hand by early November, so they were released during our Halloween event with the shipping note on the product page.

There have been MAJOR shipping/customs delays out in California the past few weeks, which are affecting many industries, not just us. We had several push-backs and were given multiple delivery dates that were not met. We didn't want to give an update on an expected date until we KNEW when the decks would be going out.

I'm happy to report that the decks have arrived at our warehouse as of a few hours ago. We know it's about 2 weeks after the estimated ship date we told everyone, and we apologize for that. It was out of our control, and it's actually about 6 weeks after we originally expected to have the cards. Our shipping team is getting all pending orders packed up and out the door ASAP. Everyone will receive an email notice with tracking once their individual order has shipped.

Hope that helps to clear things up.

[jerichoholic]

Ah great news

[jerichoholic]

Wait, so he googled palm tree images and just used that, didn't even draw them himself?

[sprouts1115]

Wait, so he googled palm tree images and just used that, didn't even draw them himself?

No. They bought the picture and used it. We should be seeing some new images of a new deck soon. I like the last paragraph.


"Now, in regard to the use of stock images in general when it comes to deck design, that’s obviously another topic. It’s not something that we encourage or expect. When Edo showed us the designs, we had no reason to believe they were anything other than his original work. That is what we expect from all designers we work with, and usually find that it goes without saying that major elements of a deck design should not come from stock images. If anything, this allows us to learn from this situation and be sure that any time we’re working with a designer in the future, we can give them the “NO STOCK IMAGES” note.

We’ve had a discussion with Edo and he assures us it will not happen again. Good enough for me, we are all human and all make mistakes from time to time. We have another design from Edo that you will all see before the end of 2014 and he assures me it’s all created by him. I think you guys will dig it. He’s a talented and creative artist with plenty of original work up his sleeve.

In terms of the Minimal name - the deck is named after Alex’s lecture. The core structure of his lecture involves his thoughts and theories on minimalism in magic performance - stripping things down to their bare bones and simplifying them to give an audience a powerful and memorable experience. These ideas can be performed with something as simple as a NOC deck or as fancy as an ORNATE Obsidian deck. So the Minimal name is more about Alex’s performance style and the content of the lecture, not the design of the deck itself.

I hope that clears things up! As much as some folks would like to believe that we’re a bunch of criminal masterminds, sitting in our big leather chairs plotting ways to block out the sun, we’re just a small group of people trying to make cool decks of cards and magic tricks."