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wingedpotato wrote:I like all the color, but it looks like the dimensions are off for poker sized cards

Agreed.

This is based upon a template sent to me by a printing company but you're right - It just doesn't look right.
I'm looking into it

I like these! Really pretty.

Back design is fixed and Aces are ready - One step closer

This may just be my personal taste since I generally dislike straight lines that "frame" the artwork, but I feel like the back design would be a lot better by improving the edges. The outer red line seems particularly out of place. What I would rather see is something more like the ace designs, which would lend itself well to a... I don't think there's a term for it - a back design that has white borders, but the design elements slightly extend into the borders. Basically, if you took, say, the AoD and "blew it up" until it fills the whole card without bleeding over the edges, and maybe tweaked corner elements etc, that would probably make a good... that kind of back design.

Is this making sense to anyone other than me?

Thanks Tom,

We actually really like the red border around the back design.
It's not quite as thick or as vivid as shown here on the test prints we've done so far and offsets the rest of the design nicely, but I guess you're right in that it all comes down to personal taste.

And now we finally have another court card to show: The King of Spades

I agree that the borders are too much. When you remove the red border, there's still plenty of framing with the thick purple border and its thinner outline.

I would agree that the red frame fits well in color and contrast, but I think you can achieve the same effect without it being a hard straight line. If I wasn't in the middle of moving, I might have been able to find something in my collection to illustrate. Stinger backs come to mind as one possibility.

The reason I'm not a fan of frames like these is that I feel it takes more away from the design than add to it. I know it's a very common practice, but to me it's the back design equivalent of using banners on court cards to merge the two halves (although not nearly as egregious). The frames take up valuable real estate that could be used by the actual design, boxes it in and cuts off the ends (reminiscent of comic book artists who use the panels as a way to avoid drawing feet).

I realise of course that, due to their common use, most of the time the frames aren't used deliberately to avoid extra work (as is more often the case with said court card banners). Just wanted to explain my impressions of frames in general.

I have to say that king is lacking something compared to the other courts you've shown. It seems simpler, like not enough time was spent refining it and getting the details right.

Adding to the red border debate is that it's hard corners, not curved to "follow" the curve of the card paper. Your gold corner elements have a nice curve to flow with the card curve.

We've removed the red border as suggested but it no longer feels right (at least to me it doesn't) therefore we will more than likely be keeping the red border intact.
We are also now happy to reveal the rest of the Kings:
The deck is about 95% complete so news of the KS launch will be coming very soon