Brüt Tarot by UUSI now live on Kickstarter

[Eoghann]

[badpete69]

Yeah I saw this also. I will need to see more.. I like old classic tarot art usually, will be curious to see what this will look like

[Mike Ratledge]

Looks promising! More?

[cherrynukacola]

Interesting. Is he thrusting his hand down the lion's throat? Traditionally on the strength card one is wrestling the lion's mouth closed (or open, depending on your perspective). Looking forward to seeing how they re-interpret the rest!

[Fes]

Oh hey, that IS a lion!

[Aussie888]

Is that perhaps Samson killing the lion as in Judges 14:5-6

5 Then went Samson down, and his father and his mother, to Timnath, and came to the vineyards of Timnath: and, behold, a young lion roared against him.
6 And the Spirit of the Lord came mightily upon him, and he rent him as he would have rent a kid, and he had nothing in his hand: but he told not his father or his mother what he had done.

[alric]

Can't be Samson, the hair isn't long enough. Looks like this is going to be my first set of tarot cards.

[sinjin7]

I know it probably won't happen, but can you imagine if Uusi decided to put out a regular deck of playing cards in the same style as a companion deck for a stretch goal? I think interest and sales would absolutely sky rocket!

[Aussie888]

Can't be Samson, the hair isn't long enough. Looks like this is going to be my first set of tarot cards.

Perhaps David (before the Goliath incident):
1 Samuel 17:34-35

34 And David said unto Saul, Thy servant kept his father’s sheep, and there came a lion, and a bear, and took a lamb out of the flock:
35 And I went out after him, and smote him, and delivered it out of his mouth: and when he arose against me, I caught him by his beard, and smote him, and slew him.

[Eoghann]

My money's on Hercules and the Nimean Lion.

[cherrynukacola]

Traditional (Rider-Waite) Strength card, for comparison.

Also, Wikipedia's article on Art Brut http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outsider_art (I assume that's what the Brut is in reference to?)

[Aussie888]

You may be onto something there.

[Collector]

Looks promising! More?

It will look promising in case of a poker deck as a stretch goal

[Magasaki]

I'd LOVE to see a poker deck as a stretch goal! Would also be great to see another interpretation of the Rider Waite after Arcana was so successful.

[Eoghann]

New teaser for the upcoming tarot.

[badpete69]

Yeah more excited now with this preview than the first one.. Looks great so far

[jerichoholic]

Awesome, will be the second Tarot deck I get

[Eoghann]

Art people! What art style am I thinking of? I know this deck reminds me of some art style but I can't quite put my finger on it and it's annoying me. Please help me out before I call it construction paper art.

[badpete69]

It definitively seems to have some form of cubism.... In looking up the different styles, found this cool page

http://www.wikiart.org/de/paintings-by-style

Mechanistic cubism seems to come close

[Eoghann]

Woah that's a lot of art styles, some I had never even heard of.

Miserabilism. I did a little bit of that on my notebooks during my angsty years. Now there's a name for it.

[dazzleguts]

This doesn't look like any of the Art Brut I've seen. It also has none of the skewed perspective or movement of Cubism.

It does look like marquetry though. Images made from placing wood pieces together, sometimes with other fine materials like bone, mother of pearl, or metals. Considered a very fine craft in Europe. The first image even seems to have wood grain.

[cherrynukacola]

It's probably closer to Naive Art than Art Brut. Interesting that they are sticking to modern playing card suits. I like that they are engaging with the meaning and symbolism of each card. My pet peeves with tarot decks are ones that just slap pretty pictures that depict the literal meanings of each card and also the ones that just modify the Rider-Waite imagery.

[uusikissa]

Hello! This is Linnea from Uusi. I was headed over here today to post about our new Tarot and saw there was already a thread for it – you guys don't miss a thing!

First off, I see that you have picked up on some of the deck's stylistic influences – very cool. "BRuT" 's inspiration is a mix of Brutalism, Art Brut (or naive art) and Early 20th Century Modernism. The artwork's largely geometric forms have been hand painted with gouache to add depth and richness of color. The deck itself is based on the traditional French, game-playing Tarot. Though the game of Tarot saw its origins in Italy, (opinions on this vary widely), the French were the ones who created what are now the standard courts for the Tarot: club, spades, diamonds & hearts. These suits eventually became so popular they replaced the earlier cups, coins, swords and wands and are now almost ubiquitous in the modern card playing market.

Our "BRuT" deck, (we've dropped the omlat – it was a misspelling on my part), follows the French Tarot in using the standard suits and courts, which include the addition of the Cavalier card standard to all game-playing Tarots, as well as the 21 Trump cards. The imagery for the trump cards in game playing Tarot's vary widely from divination themes to nature scenes or, most often, scenes that depict city / country life. We chose the divination theme as it was used on some of the very first Tarots created and we wanted to carry that element through on our own deck.

In short, we think the Tarot is the perfect game playing deck as you can use it to play so many different games. Aside from the game of Tarot (it's a lot like Bridge I've heard), you can play most of your favorite games that you use a standard card deck for by simply ditching the Cavalier and Trumps. Finally, should you be gifted with divination powers "BRuT" makes a handsome, modern passage way to peer into the eternal future!

Looking forward to sharing more of our BRuT deck with you and we hope to see you over on Kickstarter when it launches in April

[Eoghann]

Hey Linnea, what printer do you plan on using? As much as I love tarots and have several myself, the one thing that's bothered me is their inability to spread well.

[uusikissa]

Hey Linnea, what printer do you plan on using? As much as I love tarots and have several myself, the one thing that's bothered me is their inability to spread well.

Hi Eoghann! We are excited to be using EPCC on this deck. We've been working with Bill Kalush closely on the decks production and we will be using their highest grade card stock –  EPCC's "Master Finish". That card stock has a 310 gsm which gives it the perfect weight for a Tarot size deck (60mm x 110mm) and also makes it a very playable deck as it is the same card stock used in all EPCC's high-end decks. We did a lot of research on companies that produced Tarot's and found that most of them printed the decks on extremely cheap stock. Like you, we really wanted a deck that would play as well as it would look and EPCC was the perfect choice.

[badpete69]

Hey Dan. Do you fan your tarot decks. That would be one he'll of a fan hehe

[volantangel]

Very excited for the project, im always in ! Did you have alternative back designs ? I find this one a little too simple ?

[uusikissa]

Very excited for the project, im always in ! Did you have alternative back designs ? I find this one a little too simple ?

We did try a smaller pattern that also looked great, but we really loved the modernism of this design. It's a more "artistic" back design, perhaps along the lines of Bohemia's back. The smaller the pattern the more "traditional" the back looked and we wanted to stay away from the Victorian era look. Not that there is anything wrong with that look – its fantastic when done right – but for us it just seemed more appropriate to go with a bold, architectural approach. Brutalist architecture was a big inspiration for this deck.

[MagikFingerz]

I've been on the fence about these (Con: It's a tarot deck, Pro: It's UUSI), but these being printed by EPCC makes it much more probable that I'll be in on these. Thanks for the update, Linnea!

[uusikissa]

I've been on the fence about these (Con: It's a tarot deck, Pro: It's UUSI), but these being printed by EPCC makes it much more probable that I'll be in on these. Thanks for the update, Linnea!

You're welcome, Tom! And very cool to hear you are interested in the Uusi Tarot now. I agree with you completely that too many Tarots are printed on stock that is just...ehhh. But once we decided to go the traditional Tarot route using an oversize format and keeping all 78 (plus 2 ad cards) cards in one tuck, we really wanted to make sure we stayed away from the land of flimsy cardboard card stock. EPCC was the only printer we talked to that was willing to use their premium stock on a Tarot deck, so that and Bill's enthusiasm for print details sealed the deal for us to move forward with this deck and EPCC.