Secret Tale of King Arthur Playing Cards Relaunched on Kickstarter

The team at the Dutch Card House Company has relaunched the luxurious Secret Tale of King Arthur playing cards on Kickstarter. The deck will be the first in the brand new Secret Tale Playing Cards series with stories about legends that have never been told before.

We are all familiar with the Arthurian Legend of the young son of King Uther Pendragon, raised and educated by the sorcerer Merlin, who ascends to the throne of Great Britain after drawing the magical sword, Excalibur, from a sacred stone. But what if there was another story-a secret story-that told even more about Arthur's fate? 

That is the story the deck explores. The absolutely fascinating storyline and concept idea by Jannieke van Geet and beautiful narrative by Elizabeth Romeril. The deck showcases old folk art combined with antique colors from the Middle Ages making these decks of cards the perfect stage for the Secret Tale of King Arthur: 'Merlins Confession'. The artwork is detailed with a clean modern design on the back, faces, and tuck case. 

The card back features the keyhole that enters the cabinet where Merlin has hidden his admission to keep it a secret. It is richly designed with details from this Secret Tale of King Arthur.

The custom courts are the main characters of this Arthurian story. Some already legendary and some hidden for centuries, from King Arthur, Lady of the Lake to Merlin, Lady Morgause, and Lancelot.

The Ace of Spades plays an important role in the narrative, showing a little peek at Camelot. The custom pips have been redesigned and some are arranged in non-traditional order. 

For tuck box repeats the keyhole design element from the card backs, giving a sense of mystery and intrigue. TWO colorways are available during the Kickstarter campaign- the Black Knight and the White Knight Collector Edition.

Also, the MINI white Knight is recently added to the campaign and an absolutely showstopper. Not only is the tuck of this MINI deck all over print with foil and embossed. The deck is also Blue gilded and closed with a custom numbered seal! A limited print run of 200 decks will make this deck a must-have for Mini deck lovers.

      

A beautifully designed set of decks suitable for every Arthurian legend-lover and Cardician. Also available is the booklet with the back story, Merlin's Confession, the court-card illustrations, along with some background information of each character. 

Printed by Legends Playing Card Co and available for $17 on Kickstarter now.

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Now on Kickstarter, White Tulip Playing Cards

Our friends at the Dutch Card House Company are celebrating their 5th Anniversary! Over the past five years, they have released various brands and decks of playing cards. To celebrate this success, they released a new edition to the Tulip Delft Blue series on Kickstarter.

The White Tulip deck is the 3rd installment in the Tulip Delft Blue series. The custom-designed deck features the renowned Delft Blue colors with the Tulip as the centerpiece. 

The overall design of the back of the White Tulip has the same eye-catching tulips with floral details, placed with ornamentals as seen in the previous editions.  

Inside, the faces and numbers spark familiarity and feature customized pips and a font inspired by the old Dutch writing style. In this edition, they have also added a numeric pointer below the pips to make every card even more unique. Every Ace in the Tulip Playing Cards series is a crown jewel, ready to steal the show while playing, shuffling, or dealing!

There are 4 jokers in each deck are designed with the famous Dutch historical architecture in mind, totally in line with the Delft Blue color scheme. They showcase the artwork of the lovely Amsterdam canal houses, the renowned Dutch mills, and bicycles.

The deck is packaged in a matte paper stock tuck box with rich tulip details embossed at the tuck backs. The box comes alongside a numbered certificate of authenticity signed by the designer, Jannieke van Geet.

Also for collectors, they made a beautiful high-quality rigid Music box to dress up their celebration deck. Opening the box you will hear the famous tune of Tulips from Amsterdam played by a traditional Dutch hurdy-gurdy!

Printed by Legends Playing Card Co. and pledge starts at $8.50 on Kickstarter.

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Deck View: Paisley (Royal Purple Edition) Playing Cards

Magician. Royal. Stunning.

The Paisley Royals Purple Edition Playing Cards was the second stretched goal in the Paisley Kickstarter campaign last year. Designed by the Dutch Card House Company, the stunning deck was crafted with the Magician and collector in mind.

The card back features the well-known Paisley pattern in a rich purple background completed with gold metallic ink. The golden ink bleeds over the border for the most royal appearance. Also, the backs feature a marking system for suits and value, integrated into the detailed paisley back design.

The Paisley Royals comes with a classy recognizable traditional look with adjustments made to the color composition to fit the overall theme of the decks. The face cards are printed with metallic ink! Packaged in a luxurious matte tuck box manufactured with two-color hot-stamped foil and embossing! The stunning Gold and Purple foil make this deck a head-turner.

Printed by the USPCC on their famous Bicycle grade stock, crushed and traditionally cut and available for €21 from dutchcardhousecompany.com.

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News: The Second Annual PCF Deck Design Competition Sponsored by the Expert Playing Card Company

Do you have a design idea for a playing card deck? 

It's that time of the year to take your design, hammer out the dents, then present it at the Discourse! After what was a very successful first effort, PlayingCardForum.com (PCF) and the Expert Playing Card Company (EPCC) have decided to hold their second annual design competition for playing card deck designers.

Originally known as the "Discourse Deck Design Contest," the PCF Deck Design Competition will follow the format of the first competition almost exactly. Entries will be judged by the forum's general membership by way of election, and the winning design will be produced by EPCC.

How It Works 

Stage One is now underway. The competition will begin the design review stage, which will last for four weeks. Designers are encouraged (though not required) to post their designs at PCF's Design and Development message board for the membership to review and provide comments.

Stage Two begins Wednesday, July 15th 12:00 AM EDT: Official entry topic will be opened in PCF's Playing Card Plethora message board. Designers will have one week in which to post their designs and officially enter the competition.

Stage Three starts Wednesday, July 22, 12:00 AM EDT: the entry phase will close and no further entries will be accepted. Shortly thereafter, members will be asked to vote on their favorite design.

Stage Four starts Wednesday, July 29, 12:00 AM EDT: the voting stage ends. If one design has received a clear majority (any amount greater than 50%) of the vote, it will be declared the winner of the competition.

If there is a plurality, the two most voted-for designs will have a run-off election to last for two days, ending Friday, July 31, 12:00 AM EDT.

The Prize 

The winning artist receiving 432 copies (3 gross, or 36 dozen) decks of their design. Last year's winning design, the Evil Deck by Giovanni Meroni, is presently on sale and available at the Conjuring Arts Research Center's online store.

This is the kind of contest where you can win without actually being the winner, just from the exposure that your design receives. Also, you might get an indication of the responses for that Kickstarter project you've been thinking of, or perhaps you'll catch the attention of a design house that's interested in your work!

Giovanni has been a success story. Starting his own company Thirdway Industries and successfully funding two decks, Delirium and Omnia on Kickstarter.

Head on over to the Discouse and start your journey!

Discourse Deck Design Contest : 7 Questions with Giovanni Meroni

Stage 2 of the Discourse Deck Design Contest (DDDC) has just begun and you can officially start submitting your designs here. Final entries have to be submitted before 1st July 2014. Sponsored by the Expert Playing Card Co. (EPCC),  the winner will get their deck design printed by EPCC for sale and you will get three gross (432) of you decks... FREE!

So far, there has been one official entry... the Evil Deck by Italian graphic artist, Giovanni Meroni. We reached out to Giovanni and had a chat about his background, the inspiration & idea behind the Evil Deck and DDDC.

Can you tell us about yourself and what is your design background?
My name is Giovanni Meroni. I am 31 years old and I am a web art director, vector illustrator and graphic designer. I've been working in the graphic design industry since 19 years old. During the day, I design ecommerce websites in a big italian company as a senior art director. I love illustration and I usually work on my illustration project by night. I love to draw crazy characters in vector style. You can check out some of my works here.

This will be your first Playing Card deck. Why Playing Cards?
I love my web art director work. I used to design websites for big italian companies and now I'm working in the best ecommerce company in Italy. However, I missed doing something tangible, like a book, a poster... or even a deck of playing cards. To be honest, I've been searching for some printed medium with a lot of space for my crazy illustration. A deck of cards offer 54 cool canvas to fill, all related with a common context. Perfect!

We noticed the Evil deck on the DDDC. When did you first start thinking about entering the contest? What made you decide to take the plunge?
The DDDC is a great opportunity because it is a way to have a lot of decks without risking a penny, and my artwork alot of exposure. You probably noticed that I'm leaning towards EPCC to produce the deck, beacuse a lot of people suggested me to go down that path. The funny thing is, I discovered that DDDC was sponsored by EPCC after I asked them a quote for a 1,000 print run. As I would have produced my decks with them anyways, I thought that will be the best for my project to partecipate at the contest.

What is your inspiration behind the Evil Playing Cards and how did you come up with the idea?
The first reason: Evil is cool. As a child I was captivated by the villains even if some of them scare me to death. I think some good people are curious about "evil" things. The second reason: "Evil" mean a ton of monsters for me. I have fun drawing creatures, and because I had to draw 54 of them, I needed a theme that would be fun for me, otherwise I may get bored and leave the project because I don't have much patience and I often don't finish what I start.

How much time did you spend working on the deck?
I started this project in June last year. When I started, I just gathered all my unused characters, but I realized I can't use them to produce an original and organic deck. So, I started to draw. The first card was the queen of hearts. After the queen, I started with some numbers- the 7 of clubs, one of my favourites.

I drew one card a day throughout summer, mostly after work. By September, I wasn't too happy with the result and I stopped drawing them. During the Christmas holidays, I felt sad for my cards being buried without any use, and I decided to finish them. 2 months later, I managed to complete the deck, redrawing the ones I didn't like before.

I opened the site/socials/etc in February and I started getting feedbacks. People wasn't so passionate about the result: they said "cool", but the deck lack of uniformity and the court cards are less "powerful" than the numbers.

At first I was discouraged, but I decided to hang in there and re-draw almost every card, changing the themes: Hearts are evil passions, Diamonds is violence and only clubs and spades stayed "nature" and "magic". I finished the last one (King of Spades) some days ago. Now I'm happy of the result.

What are some of the 'Hidden Meaning' behind the playing cards?
When I posted the old Evil Deck on a forum, people tell me "Why the Jack of spades and hearts aren't one-eyed?" So, when I redesigned them, I put a patch on their eyes. The deck is inspired by a lot of fantasy monsters and myths, some of the Ancient Greece. I'm a big fan of the minotaur, hydra and harpies. The 7 of clubs have 7 cats and it's named "7 lives". In Italy we think cats have 7 lives instead 9. Probably Italy is more dangerous for them.

Finally, what are your favourite playing card decks?
The Federal 52,  Requiem and the Borderline deck are really cool decks!

Thanks Giovanni and all the best! This looks like a fun deck.

Check out the Evil Deck's home page to find out more. If you have a deck design or an aspiring designer or artist, check out the DDDC. This is the kind of contest where you can win without actually being the winner, just from the exposure that your design receives. Also, you might get an indication of the responses for that Kickstarter project you've been thinking of, or perhaps you'll catch the attention of a design house that's interested in your work! Head on over to the Discouse and start your journey!