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Hello UC!
My name is Adam and I'm a student living in France. I've been doing magic for many years and I've always loved the idea of having my own deck of cards. So, some months ago I started jotting down some ideas. (Please bear in mind that Ithis is my first time doing anything like this ) Here's an overview of the project:

I really like travelling so I somehow wanted the theme of the cards to be related to that. I figured that a passport (the object that symbolises travelling) looks like a deck of cards in terms of shape and size. Because of this, I thought that a "passport themed deck" would be awesome. There are technically 4 different colours of passports, so there would be 4 different colour versions of the deck (red, blue, green and black) plus potentially some future versions, but we're not there yet!

"Passport playing cards" seemed like a mouthful, so I opted for something easier to pronounce: VIA.

VIA is a Latin word that means either "road" or "through" which is directly linked to the theme of the cards. Plus, it makes for a nice symmetrical symbol as you can see

All of the court cards would be subtly customised. I thought it'd be super cool to have the jacks, queens and kings to be doing stuff that people do when travelling (I've attached a few examples)
I've also attached our latest back design. I have spoken to lots of people including Cartamundi and most of them are saying that they look too similar to Chris Ramsay's 1st playing cards. I do agree, and for that reason, I'm currently making changes to the back design. A perfect balance between simplicity, elegance and uniqueness is proving to be very difficult! I would be very grateful if you could give me any advice/ideas/suggestions regarding the project. I'd really like this project to be a collaborative one!
Thanks and I'm looking forward to hearing from you guys!

With travel being the theme, have you thought about making the courts items about travel? Just by looking at the images provided, I would think it was about photography.

macstrat wrote:With travel being the theme, have you thought about making the courts items about travel? Just by looking at the images provided, I would think it was about photography.

Tourists take pictures

That Jack is so awesome with the blowing hair that it makes me wish the kings had more interesting tweaks (the selfie stick is cool, but the king's face could be more self-absorbed). If you could nail clever changes to the courts that bear repeated viewings, this could be a primo deck.

And yes, those backs need a new design.

Back design is awful. That strip just looks like a direct ripoff of Ramsay's 1st deck.

The courts, however, is awesome

wingedpotato wrote:(the selfie stick is cool, but the king's face could be more self-absorbed). If you could nail clever changes to the courts that bear repeated viewings, this could be a primo deck.

Duck face pose for the King with the selfie stick!

Maybe the courts could have their clothes changed aswell. I mean people travel (besides business trips of course) in casual clothing. Tank tops for the Jacks, Polo/Hawaii shirts for the Kings for example. But I would totally understand if you wanna keep the courts closer to standard, due to usage for magic. Could be a gaff card idea though; King (or a Queen ) changes his clothes to get ready for the pool...

I like the idea for the back design, but yah, passports look cool as passports, but don't work pretty good as back designs, due to being a bit boring.
The "VIA" in the corners is a nice touch, but 95% of people in the playing card scene will now subscribe this feature to Chris Ramsay (goosh humans are so stoopid ) and will call every deck that has this feature a rip-off.

Maybe a travel plan/map could be a better back design, you could make it monochrome if you wanna stick to a mute tonal back design.

Just some thougts...