[Update[ The Kingdom & Kinghood Playing Cards are now LIVE on Kickstarter. Over 4000% funded.
The team from Ark Playing Cards is on FIRE! In the past year, the team has released elegant Card College Playing Cards and the innovative Tempo Playing Cards Series. With excellent creativity and bold design, these two decks have generated some hype and excitement for their respective Kickstarter campaigns.
The KINGDOM & KINGHOOD is the 3rd Project produced by the ARK Playing Cards. It took the team two years to bring it to life. According to the campaign page,
The products of this project have gone through over 100 times of proofing and technical testing and cost more than 100k USD on Research & Development. We hope that by creating this project, we will be able to Take the Luxury of Playing Cards to a Whole New Level.
The KINGDOM project is based on the royal theme of the Middle Ages and its illustrations are drawn from the luxurious style of the Renaissance period. Throughout history, the royal element has always been the most luxurious and noble symbol. Like their previous decks, ARK has built this magnificent “Playing Card Palace”, and added the most beautiful illustrations to it.
The Palace-Shaped Gift box is inspired by the palace architecture during the Renaissance period. It adopts a Vertical Packaging Structure composed of three parts: an outer cover, a 4-page fold, and a base. As you open the three parts of the box, the interior of the “Luxurious Palace” will be revealed in front of your eyes.
The cover is made of high-end Italian iridescent paper, which is covered with delicate Full-page foiled lines. The pattern on the foil copper plate is refined by laser engraving. Four Illustrations of marble sculptures peek out from the Arc-shaped windows, which makes the box incredible!
In order to make KINGDOM Playing Cards exquisite and luxurious during the static display, ARK redesigned the placement posture of the two decks inside the gift box, using the vertical placement instead of the traditional horizontal one. The pair of decks are like two swords inserted inside the base, which looks grand and energetic. Brilliant!
The deck is fully custom, from the Aces, Jokers and the Court Cards. The illustrations are drawn using the classic Sgraffito painted technique. Each illustration was first drawn and colored carefully on the paper and then using high-precision scanning transferring into digital images, the whole process over 3 months to complete. The decks are packaged in an equally luxurious tuck box crafted with process 8 processes of production procedures, the combination of embossing, foiled lines, and illustrations!
KINGHOOD is the second part of the Kickstarter project. The decks are equally creative as they are beautiful. Each card in KINGHOOD is fully customized. The drawing style of the illustrations is classical and elegant, looks like a totem from ancient legends. You will see different images of the cursed orc warriors on each of the Court Cards, with different weapons.
The tuck boxes with Sword and Knight are the most eye-catching designs on the tuck box. The 3D relief embossing process makes the delicate illustration incredibly appealing. The vertical card box cover is covered with a bronzing pattern, to the relief convex card box better protection, but also make the opening process of the box more ritualistic.
Each boxset contains two decks of cards: one gold and one silver. On the front of each is an illustration of a sword. If you put the back of two decks together side by side, the illustrations will be stitched together to form a picture of knights dueling.
The two decks come in a cool Collector’s Gift Box. This V-shaped side-opening structure gift box makes unboxing incredibly unique and formal. When opening the box cover, the lid on both sides of the box slowly reveals the card sculpture in the middle, as if the gates are opened and the knights clad in armor are ready to fight to the death.
There are lots of cool items to discover for this incredible Kickstarter project, including the KINGDOM Black Pearl Boxset. The boxset looks LUXURIOUS with its black and gold colorway! We were told that this version uses a variety of manufacturing processes which can be only seen in High-end luxury brands and products.
[Update[ The Kingdom & Kinghood Playing Cards are now LIVE on Kickstarter. Over 4000% funded.
Mark your calendar and head to the Kickstarter campaign here! Don’t miss out! Pledge starts from $50 for a boxset.
