UnitedCardists.com - The forum for Cardistry, Magic, Custom Decks and All Things Playing Cards.

Thought I'd start a thread on the topic of P.C.I.I or Playing Card Industry Innovations, as I call it. Over the course of the past few months (maybe the past year even), there has been a number of unique editions to playing cards, such as gold foil on the cards themselves (Lotrek, we're pointing at you ), 3d artwork on the tuck cases, even cards made from other resources (metal, wood etc.).

But I thought something that would be interesting to discuss is, what have we yet to see? What techniques haven't we seen in the playing card world (or at least on a big enough scale in it) that would be a real innovation for us to enjoy? I'm hoping that if we keep a record of things we would want to see, then maybe some designers might actually produce it in the future *cough* Randy *cough cough* Jackson

One thing that has been recently asked about is coloured stock that will take up and reproduce ink colours reliably. Currently white is best.
Coloured stock would have the advantage of using less ink (potentially making printing cheaper) and would avoid a problem where heavy use chips the ink from the card edges.

Coloured stock would still use a lot of pigment - to colour the paper - so I imagine it's not cheap, but I like the possibilities.

You could have the faces of the cards diecut so the pips are coloured by a layer in the middle of the card. A kind of debossing. Or you could have coloured stock for the back of the card and white or off-white stock for the face of the card so the ink would be regular on the faces but limited on the backs.

Kind of wild and expensive, and I know that having diff coloured edges for front and back wouldn't go over well with the magicians, but the cards could look real flash.

Tying this to another thread, how about colored stock with metallic inks?

How about metallic inks that actually look metallic...

sinjin7 wrote:How about metallic inks that actually look metallic...

Oh, I agree. In this case especially being metallic as opposed to appearing metallic is 100% required for the pricing on dark or black stock is necessary.

Like big flake bass boat style metallics. That'd be sweet.

Metallics have go better - but not that much.

What I don't like is the Elite trick of using gradients to fake shine - and this is the one reason I have pause over Max's new Metal Deck - the illusion and illustration looks good on screen, but I'm not convinced it will work in real life...

How about textured stock - the original fed 52 had a backgound texture that mimiced the linen with coloured threads that make up older US currency. Actual stock that had those properties and then printing onto that raw stock would have looked pretty sweet.

Or inks with other properties than metallic and UV - pearlescent, opalescent, iridescent, thermal change, colloidal metallics - so many possibilities!

I would like to see some advancements in the way or LEDs or OLEDs. It would be really cool to have a light-up deck or tuck somehow, someway..

Yeah - programmabke full colour smart paper. All your favourite decks in one box!

And the person that comes up with that technology will make billions and not from playing cards. There are tons of applications for electronic paper that's actually thin, free standing and durable. Quite a few decades away still I'd say.

While itwould be cool for a deck, if the image of the card is actually a digital image programmed in somehow it would be too easy a thing to hack and suddenly a Bluetooth command sent from someone's ring gives them a royal flush.

I was first introduced to augmented reality applications last year by someone who suggested that I move in that direction with my artwork. As one who produces animated fractal artwork, the idea of looking at a poster print of my art (through technology like Google glass) and see it as an animated video was and still is very appealing. A card is just a real small poster, so the tech already exist for augmented reality playing cards... and the cards themselves can still be printed using existing press/ink technology, since the viewing tech is doing the heavy lifting.