Flower themed playing cards

[pushkar000]

Hi guys, I have a concept for a custom deck. The quality is low - I am not a designer and these are concepts, not final art. But I am quite satisfied with them. I would appreciate it if you guys could give the cards a quick look. I would like to collect feedback, make appropriate changes and then send these to a graphic artist within 2-3 days.

I've only uploaded QS, AS, back and joker. That's pretty much the whole deck. All the courts follow the same color scheme and style. The faces and hairstyles have been slightly changed. Numbered cards are standard pips, layouts and fonts.

This deck is intended to be a magicians/cardists deck, hence the standard faces. The petals crossing the border are for fans. It should look like a trail of petals.

I will be requesting both bordered and borderless backs form the designer.

Even though this is basically a hack job(albeit after my best efforts), I hope it is enough to make out the general idea. I would like to kickstart this in the coming months. Any advice, opinions etc are greatly appreciated.

Separately, I am working on a more art-heavy design, leaning a bit more heavily towards a traditional japanese aesthetic, with custom pips and courts. Foil and all that good stuff. Thats the edition that I hope to put out for collectors. I hope to have that ready soon as well.

Thanks!

Pushkar

[shaitani]

I have so many things to say that I can't possibly say it all in a coherent manner. So I won't say it all, and it won't be coherent.

I feel like the entirety of your idea and whether it succeeds is dependent on the artist's work.
This is true for every deck ever. In fact, I'd go slightly further and say it's true for everything ever made in the history of the world.
Ideas are worth nothing unless the work is put into actually making it.

Projects are ruined sometimes by the smallest of details, so I'm not sure what type of critique you're looking for here, but sure yeah the idea of a flower deck is fine. That said, what you have here (unless you plan to make this a Bicycle deck or the artist puts down some amazing artwork) as a Kickstarter project is almost guaranteed to fail.

The petals crossing the border are for fans. It should look like a trail of petals.

A quick jab at this. You really need to do more work on this project. You can actually mock this fan up in a few minutes of photoshop using your back design, not sure why you didn't do that.

Another few quickies:

• Your backs and the joker are rotationally asymmetric. That's bad.
• Don't use the letter J for Joker, it will be confused with the J for Jack

[Great Lakes Cards]

Great start. I applaud you for not just thinking or talking but doing. I will just mention one thing - you might have an issue with the flowers going all the way to edge as in the mock ups. This can be hard for printers and might result in difficult quality control in the end. Stick with it. Take it one step at a time.

[RichK]

I'm no designer so I applaud your wanting to create something.

That said I agree with shaitani's notes about the non 2 way back and J for Joker. I don't like the squared off corner on the back either. If you want a flowery Joker then make them. Jokers aren't 2 way so get creative with them.

The Queen almost looks cartoon-ish to me. I'm sure it's much easier to recolor standard courts and make tweaks than what looks like you redrew the Queen.

I wish you luck and keep posting here. Keep a thick skin too because our comments are meant to improve your work and ideas, not tear you down.

[pushkar000]

Thanks everyone for their replies. Yes, I came into this with thick skin. I'm here to make a good product worth buying, not here to have people stroke me. I am new to all this and that is a position I must understand if I want to move forward. I appreciate and take heed of all advice and criticisms. I've been redoubling my efforts into this design keeping the points mentioned in mind.

Great start. I applaud you for not just thinking or talking but doing. I will just mention one thing - you might have an issue with the flowers going all the way to edge as in the mock ups. This can be hard for printers and might result in difficult quality control in the end. Stick with it. Take it one step at a time.

Specifically regarding this - can I ask what you mean by this being hard for printers? I would assume - correct me if mistaken - that this is in a way the same as printing a borderless back design.

[NineLives]

Having a thick skin and the desire to make a good product is more than a great start! well done
In terms of the back design being hard to print - any design that goes outside the 'safe-margin' relies on absolute precision and perfect registration (or you end up with very visible differences between the cards) - think floating petals being cut at different points throughout the deck... Choosing a good printer will let you accomplish a lot more with a design that pushes the boundaries, and they can work with you to get the desired result, though it helps to be aware of the challenges with design choices along the way

To me, the inner border on the blue background, takes away from the floating petals... I'd suggest either fading the blue to white (like a gradient or feather) - or, bring the blue to the edge - that way the petals don't have to 'cross barriers' to get to the edge. Just my two cents