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Hi all

First time creator but longtime UC lurker/occasional poster.

You might have seen early images of this deck I’m working on over on r/playingcards. It’s a Passport themed deck concept with a 1970s jetset travel vibe and a cold war spy mystery / puzzle built in. Besides playing cards, my other great love is puzzles.

I’m an avid collector but definitely finding my way when it comes to making a deck. Thankfully, X-Decks have kindly offered to produce with RoomOne as the printer. I’ve also had some great advice from UC members and other designers.

Here’s an overview snapshot of the concept to give you the general idea as well as a closer look at the back and fan design.

The back will be gold foiled with a little printed texture and borderless to look more like a real Passport. The notches are based on a 1st flight officer’s stripes and when fanned make braided bands.

Would love to get your feedback, happy to answer any questions and would love to share more (courts, tuck etc) over coming weeks.

Cool idea, I’m excited to see how it ends up.

I like what I see

Me likey!

Here’s a look at numbers and aces. Once again, love to get your feedback.

The arrival and departure stamps are authentic to the 40 countries they’re from and to the period of the story (ie 1971-1973).

Even though the faces are borderless and pretty custom, I’ve tried to keep it as playable as I could with large indexes and a consistent two-way outer frame to keep the edge uniform.

Still working it out but the goal is for the watermark logo to be holo-foiled like an anti-counterfeiting device. Not strictly accurate for a 1970s passport but thought it would look cool enough to justify a bit of historical inaccuracy - particularly on the court cards which I’ll share soon.

Me still likey, although since you are asking for feedback, I'll simply note that for the number cards, if there were somehow you could work in the appropriate number of pips in the main part of the card, that would make this even tastier. I have no real suggestions for how you might pull that off. The courts you show at the top of this thread -- well, really, it's only the Queens, but you know what I mean -- kinda pull this trick off of having a representation of the court's personage by, in this case, having an image of the Queen in the main part of the card. Using visa stamps for the Aces' main pips is also pretty cool. I'm not making any connection like that with the number cards. Since you are using visa stamps, maybe instead of pips you could nonetheless emphasize the value of the card somehow in the numbers represented in the stamps? Food for thought.

Still like these, regardless. But that would be a way to make them even more likeable.

To your point Rousselle, they could be subtle, faded into the background with the stamps much more opaque and layered on top of the pips for added effect. Worth a try to see how they might look. It would need to be a different enough shade so that the black and red of the stamps doesn't disappear on top.

Good points from Rouselle and Kev. I wonder if a third alternative might be having the pips prominent and the stamps faded behind them. I can handle busier on Courts and Aces but prefer my pip cards pretty traditional.

rousselle wrote: ↑Mon Oct 28, 2024 5:18 am if there were somehow you could work in the appropriate number of pips in the main part of the card, that would make this even tastier

Thanks Rousselle, Kevork and Honeybee

I really appreciate your feedback on this question. It was one of the tougher decision I made on the deck.

Apart from the obvious custom elements needed to make it look like an actual passport, I really wanted the deck to be as playable as possible - and not be too much of a novelty concept-type thing.

The first iteration did indeed have pips on the number cards (I’ll try to find and post some images of those so you can see what I mean). I made the pips lighter than the index pips and the stamps covered them them a bit - but I thought they looked ok overall - pretty good even.

But that was before I started doing the high number cards. When I got to cards with 7,8, 9 and 10 pips on them, they just started getting really busy and clashy with the stamps.

It might not have been as bad if it had been on a solid field but all the lines and numbers in the background made it worse. When I made the pips too light they started to look like smudges against the linework. When I tried to do them as outlines they got lost amid all the other elements.

The stamps are actually integral to the puzzle aspect of the deck so, whatever else,I needed them to remain very clear and legible.

After many experiments - like making the pips tiny or in a non-standard array, or foil only, I reluctantly got rid of them and the cards finally started to look balanced (and more like an actual Passport) again.

I understand that decision comes at a cost and might give the deck less playability and tradition appeal - but it ended up being a straight trade off between objectives.

Sorry for the long winded response but, as a long-time lurker on UC I respect you guys’ opinion and wanted to give a proper response. Also its been good for me to revisit the rationale and talk it through aloud.

I still think what you have is good and still very playable. I might be tempted to limit the stampings to two if that is not at odds with your puzzle - I think the 5oC looks a little busy with three but that is probably just me

Honeybee wrote: ↑Mon Oct 28, 2024 10:04 pm I still think what you have is good and still very playable. I might be tempted to limit the stampings to two if that is not at odds with your puzzle - I think the 5oC looks a little busy with three but that is probably just me

Thanks. And yes, should be fine to limit it to 2 per card. Appreciate the feedback.

A few courts and backstory…

The courts form part of the puzzle woven through the deck.

Each suit depicts an aristocratic family in exile. The passage of history has not been kind to their once-royal lines but, as citizens of the world, they epitomise the style, excess and pleasure-seeking lifestyle of the 70s jetset era. 

Each is intended to look like the ID page of a passport including holo foil anti-counterfeiting elements. Thoughts?

You already know I love this deck. Really excited to see this launch and become a reality soon. This started out amazing and it has transformed to something even better. Best of luck - I will be there!

Looks really clean and refined. Nicely done!

This is all looking very exciting.
The Courts being aristocratic families in exile is brilliant
The quality of printing - having to look like a passport, will be paramount
I don't think I have any Room One decks

Honeybee wrote: ↑Tue Nov 05, 2024 7:18 pm This is all looking very exciting.
The Courts being aristocratic families in exile is brilliant
The quality of printing - having to look like a passport, will be paramount
I don't think I have any Room One decks

Thanks! I’m pretty excited.

Agree that the print accuracy will be pretty important. I’ve done some tests of the ink aspects and it all holds up. The foil aspect is complicated and will need to be very accurate.

I think I’m in good hands with RoomOne though. I’ve got a couple of their decks (Fox’s Wedding and Night Parade) which handle great (super even fans, precise registration and two directional faro if you can believe that). As a new entrant building their brand, and with folks like Torres behind it there is a strong personal care factor (and love of playing cards) which I didn’t get from some of the other printers I spoke with.