Republic Playing Cards

Art. Finnish. Pattern.

Released in 2021, REPUBLIC Playing Cards is the first UUSI playing card since 2016. This custom design deck is based on Finnish/Nordic folk art and design.

The deck sports a predominant beige/black colorway with a seamless pattern inspired by traditional Finnish design on the card back. The court cards, Ace of Spades and Jokers are fully custom yet at the same time very familiar and immediately recognizable. 

The deck is packaged in a custom tuck box with an embossed design on luxurious, heavy paper stock. Printed by the Expert Playing Card Company premium playing card stock with linen finish.

UUSI's Republic Playing Cards Available for Pre-Order

The team from UUSI is back with a brand new deck, REPUBLIC Playing Cards. The team hasn't created a new playing card deck for the studio in over five years, so it's pretty exciting for them to release a custom playing card deck based on Finnish/Nordic folk art and design. 

According to the product page,

There is a large Finnish community in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan where our studio is located, especially in our hometown of Republic. We are excited to have a deck that bears the name of this local community that we love so much and cannot wait to share it with you!

The deck sports a predominant beige/black colorway with a seamless pattern inspired by traditional Finnish design on the card back. The court cards, Ace of Spades and Jokers are fully custom yet at the same time very familiar and immediately recognizable. 

The deck is packaged in a custom tuck box with an embossed design on luxurious, heavy paper stock. Printed by the Expert Playing Card Company premium playing card stock with linen finish.

Pre-order now for $30 on UUSI.us

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Junkanoo Playing Cards by Uusi Sold Out!

Out of nowhere... an UUSI deck! This is an Uusi exclusive commission for Baha Mar Casino, "Junkanoo" is a playing card deck that pays homage to the storied, folk festival of the same name held every year in the Bahamas by the local island residents.

This First Edition Junkanoo playing card deck was printed as a Limited Edition of 1000 decks for the High-rollers, friends, and patrons of the Baha Mar casino. According to the product page, the casino has shared 225 of these special decks with Uusi to make them available to collectors, magicians, flourishers, poker players and all who enjoy the artistry and beauty of rare, custom playing card decks.

"Junkanoo" playing cards are fully custom with original artwork by Uusi and reflect the beauty and creative abundance of this local community and truly embody the Baha Mar catchphrase, Life Spectacular.

The deck is packaged in a gorgeous tuck box, with gold foil details and embossed. Printed by the Expert Playing Card Company in Taiwan and recently sold out on uusi.us. Originally priced at $45.

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Deck View: BRuT Playing Cards

Modernist. Geometric. Gouache.

From the team at Uusi, the BRuT Limited Edition is a modernist playing card deck. The deck was originally funded on Kickstarter as a companion to Uusi's Tarot deck. The gorgeous artwork is inspired by Early 20th Century Modernism, Art Brut (or Outsider Art) and the forceful, geometric look of Brut Architecture. All imagery in this deck is hand-painted using gouache – a type of watercolor medium that is similar to watercolor but more highly pigmented.

The BRuT Playing Card deck features 52 playing cards and two jokers all with original, eye-catching artwork that makes them ideal for magic and card games, yet at the same time very familiar and recognizable by players and spectators alike. Printed by EPCC on their famous Master Finish card stock with a linen finish.

Available now at JP Games.

News: UUSI Teases New Playing Cards; coming October 22

The husband and wife team from UUSI just teased their next deck of playing cards on social media. Hyde Park Playing Cards was designed exclusively for Hyde Park Mouldings, New York.

A photo posted by Uusi (@uusidesignstudio) on Oct 19, 2016 at 6:23am PDT

According to UUSI's post on Instagram,

Finally able to share a secret poker deck project we've been working on with the New York based company Hyde Park Mouldings, one of the premier architectural moulding companies in the world. Working closely with the owner David Nassim, we were able to bring the artwork of his skilled craftsman Vincent Kallenbrum together with our playing card design sensibility for one sweet deck.

The tuck box features sculpted embossing and gold foil printing. Two versions were made, the dark and light version. Only 250 of each will be available on USSI's website this Saturday (October 22nd, 10am CST).

Collections: Classic by Uusi Studios

Six decks ago, starting with the still sought after Blue Blood, Uusi embarked on their new project. It was a series that was to consist of 6 different decks, each with its own style, look and concept. That series came to a close with Classic. Appropriately named, Classis is exactly that, a throwback to the vintage look and feel of old renaissance artistry, the hand painted courts and hand drawn back design all show the true artistic talent that Uusi brings to all of their projects.

The tuck has a soft feel and subtle embossing to it, and the off white color helps the bold design work stand out, while still having a “Vintage” look to it. As with all of Uusi’s decks, Classic was also printed at USPC, the antique hue of the base color of the cards works really well with the Classic theme and the almost iconic large full pips feel perfect in this renaissance package.

The court cards are the stand out element of the deck in my opinion, a very strong Classic design, again pulling from the renaissance period, bold character and the perfect palette make each court look like a painting you would find hanging in a museum. The Ace of Spades has a nice regal look to it and the Jokers are playfully innocent and continue to tie the theme together exceptionally well.

Available in Blue and Red, Classic also features another Uusi staple, the two panels (Card) Diptych, adorned with mythical creatures and a banner that stretches across both cards that reads “no. VI” (No. 6) on one side. Classic is everything I would have expected from Uusi, it continues to showcase Linnea and Peters talent and commitment to producing something different than each previous deck. Classic is a bit bittersweet, closing the chapter on Uusi’s series, but they haven’t disappeared completely from the playing card world, which is good news for us.

If your new to collecting, take a moment to look up not only Classic, but all six decks in the Uusi series, you would be hard pressed to find such a divers series anywhere else.  The only real hard piece to find is the original Blue Blood, but you can enjoy the look and feel of that deck with the Redux version. The others in the series are not impossible to find, but might set you back a little. Well worth adding to your “Wish List”, and they definitely earn the title of “Must Have” in just about any collection. Enjoy the “Vintage” look of Classic, and venture into the back library as well, you won’t be disappointed.

The Collection segment is produced by Anthony Ingrassia of Kardify. No part of this article, images or video can be reproduced without written permission from the author and Kardify.com. To see more of Anthony's (Sparkz) collection and work please visit his Facebookpage or follow him on Instagram.  

Kickstarter: BRuT Playing Cards by Uusi

The team at Uusi is back with a modernist playing card deck. The BRuT Limited Edition Playing Card deck is a companion to the Tarot deck that is currently funding on Kickstarter. The project is already 148% funded with 25 days to go.

The artwork is inspired by Early 20th Century Modernism, Art Brut (or Outsider Art) and the forceful, geometric look of Brut Architecture. All imagery in this deck is hand-painted using gouache – a type of watercolor medium that is similar to watercolor but more highly pigmented.

The BRuT Playing Card deck features 52 playing cards and two jokers all with original, eye-catching artwork that makes them ideal for magic and card games, yet at the same time very familiar and recognizable by players and spectators alike. Pledge starts from $12, BRuT will be printed by EPCC on their famous Master Finish card stock with a linen finish. Only 5000 will be available.

Collection: Blue Blood Redux by Uusi Studios

Blue Blood Redux was another chance for collectors who may have missed out on the Original Blue Blood release. Redux was much the same deck as the original with some minor changes consisting of a new tuck box image and some changes to the court cards.

They also added unique diptych cards and two new Aces. Redux was not meant to be one of the planned six-deck series, but more of a “companion deck” to Blue Blood.

Another beautiful and unique deck from Uusi, if nothing else, their series spans very different looks and concepts.

The Collection segment is produced by Anthony Ingrassia of Kardify. No part of this article, images or video can be reproduced without written permission from the author and Kardify.com

Kickstarter: Uusi Classic

[Update] Now LIVE on Kickstarter!

If your any kind of Playing Card aficionado you have at least one deck from Uusi Studio's in your collection. Uusi has brought the Playing Card community some of the most beautiful decks imaginable. Bringing true artistic designs and concept to functional playing cards.

Back in 2012 Uusi set out to create a 6 deck series of Playing Cards starting with the Blue Bloods, since then what they've brought to us are 5 completely unique decks with varying styles, designs and concepts, no two alike, but unmistakably Uusi.

This weekend Uusi will be bringing it's final deck in the series to Kickstarter, it's very bittersweet, while I'm excited to finally be able to pledge my support for the Uusi Classic's, I also have to take in the fact that this is the last deck in the series.

So please join us on Saturday November 1st, 2014 at 9AM Central to celebrate not only the latest creation by Uusi Studios, but the amazing catalog of work they've brought us over the years.

Mark your calendars, you won't want to miss this!

For more information about Uusi Studio's please visit their website at Uusi,us or keep up with the latest news and creations on their Facebook page.

Deck View: Blueblood Redux by UUSI

Royal. Indigo. Legendary.

One of our all-time favourite. The Blueblood Redux features hand-drawn illustrations by UUSI (artists, Linnea Gits & Peter Dunham), for all the court cards, original layouts for the pip, (number) cards and 2 original jokers artwork that form a diptych. An artful take on the classic playing card deck,

The deck also features embossed design on the tuck box stock and printed on a bicycle playing card stock with air cushion (linen) finish by the USPCC.

Limited stock available from JP Games. Use the code KARDIFY10 during check-out to get 10% off for orders over £50.

Deck View: Bohemia Limited Edition Playing Cards

Baroque. Grandeur. Contemporary.

Bohemia is Uusi's second out of the eventual six deck series. The artwork of this eye-catching deck was inspired by the unlikely pairing of 17th-century Baroque style with contemporary, urban street art. Each have a flair for drama, tension and grandeur that when mixed together create one lush, combustible style!

Every single card, right down to the pips and indices is individually hand-painted in varying shades of luminous blue for the dark suits of Spades and Clubs and lushly romantic red for the light suits of Hearts and Diamonds. Bohemia is printed by the USPCC on Bicycle playing card stock with an Air Cushion (linen) finish.

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1-ON-1: Uusi

In 2010, husband and wife team Peter Dunham and Linnea Gits opened the doors to their new design studio in Chicago Illinois with a very telling idea in mind:  that life is worth the meaningful effort, and its reward is one of discovery.

That design studio was Uusi (Finnish for “new”). Their client list eventually grew to include Herman Miller, Design Within Reach, Chronicle Books, Sharpie, Draft FCB, and Prismacolor. Their work is presented in many diverse media, from Fine Art, Illustration, Graphic & Interior Design to Photography and Woodworking.

Linnea and Peter had been collecting Playing Card decks for years as inspirational objects, and in 2012, decided to design a custom deck of their own. That deck was Blue Blood, which was launched and funded on Kickstarter with huge success and accolades from their backers. Uusi had brought a long-missing Fine Art feel back to the playing card community and opened the door for a creative surge that is still going strong today.

With the success of their first deck, Uusi released their second deck, Bohemia. Its bold “Street art meets Baroque” hand-painted design was release to much of the same success and acclaim which Blue Blood had garnered. With the release of Bohemia, the studio also revealed that it and Blue Blood were the first decks in a planned six deck series, Bohemia being the second deck in the series.

In 2013 Uusi released their next 3 installments to the series, Royal Optik, Blue Blood Redux and Pagan, all via Kickstarter, and all reaching the same success and praise their previous projects had enjoyed. Royal Optik is described as the combination of two art styles “Op Art and Woodcut – coming together to create one completely original playing card deck”. Released in two color variations, Royal Optik was deck 3 in the series.

Blue Blood Redux was the next release, and marked the return of the “Indigo Monarchs” of Blue Blood to an established and new audience that may have missed out on the original Blue Blood deck. Redux was much the same deck as the original with some minor changes consisting of a new tuck box image and some changes to the court cards. They also added unique diptych cards (a “diptych is a work of art in which two image “panels” create one continuous image when joined together) and two new Aces. Redux was not meant to be one of the planned six-deck series, but more of a “companion deck” to Blue Blood. I guess we can call it deck 1B in the series. That is not an official statement, by the way. ;)

The fourth deck in the series is Pagan, returning to one of the oldest mediums in art: oil painting, and drawing inspiration from a personal place for Linnea and Peter:

“Our inspiration for Pagan came from our love of the great forests and lakes of Northern Wisconsin and Michigan's Upper Peninsula. The smell of the woods, their silence and the enormous beauty of the forests and lakes in that region of the US has always inspired us. When you are deep in the forest, the feeling of wilderness is intense - and it was that feeling that became the creative starting point for our new deck.”

The fifth deck in the series, Hotcakes, which is currently Live on Kickstarter, draws its inspiration from traditional 17th Century, full-figure (non-reversible) court cards combined with a mix of Pop Art, such as Andy Warhol’s playful style and Charles Pry’s one-off art decks and Italian designer Emilio Pucci’s pattern work. All these elements combine for a playful, colorful vision of courts of old.

Peter and Linnea were and are very busy with their current project, but still found the time to discuss aspects of their work as designers as well as what Playing Cards mean to them and what the future holds:

Uusi is about much more than Playing cards, which non-playing card project have you been most excited about, either past or present?

Peter and I began as artists and transitioned in to design about ten years ago. Our first design job was with Herman Miller, the renowned US furniture and design company, where we were contracted for a series of murals for their showroom in Chicago. They loved the work so much that we were given the job of creating murals for their National Design Centers in LA, New York and DC as well as their company headquarters in Zealand, Michigan. They also commissioned Peter for site-specific cabinetry and myself for added graphics and desktop items for their showrooms and headquarters. We continued to work in the commercial design market for private clients and large companies like Draft FCB, before starting Uusi in the fall of 2010. Our decision to start our own design studio rose from the desire to get back into the studio process again; focusing on material exploration, craftsmanship and the luxury of refining an idea outside the mainstream of the marketplace. Creating Uusi and this kind of environment has really been our favorite overall project to date!

Do you have a "Creative Process" you go through when taking on a new project?

Our Creative Process depends largely on whether it is a job for one of our clients, or a project for our own company. Client jobs come with their own set of limitations, expectations and deliverables that structure the creative process from the very start. Work for our own company tends to unfold more slowly, and is guided mainly by our passion for a genre and our intuition for what we want to see come to life there. Once we decide to pursue an idea for an object, we start by researching its history. It is important to know where something came from in order to take it somewhere else – we want to continue the conversation (so to speak) within a genre instead of just echoing what is already there.
For the playing cards we have created for Uusi, we used this research process which included not only reading about playing cards and their history, but collecting vintage decks – mainly from Europe. As we began to understand the deck's specific uses and the many ways the artwork had been created, ideas began to take shape on how we wanted to contribute to that story by adding something new to it and making it uniquely our own. At the time we got into designing custom decks – about three years ago – almost all of the new decks we saw were created using computer-based artwork. What we wanted to see was artwork created by hand and using traditional art mediums with a modern theme.

Given our Fine Art backgrounds, this was a natural path for us to take and we decided it would be cool to use as many mediums as we could to fully explore the hand-drawn line and color in the decks.

Another thing we wanted to do was change the way the tuck box was presented. So many decks use the traditional "banknote" design approach – borders that contain imagery and copy. When done well it is very appealing and just what you expect a deck's tuck to look like, but if you push the borders off the box you move into a different packaging realm and can create a more unique look and style that is distinctly your own.

Once we had decided how to approach our own contribution to this genre we were off and running. Knowing our approach to the overall process meant that each deck would have its own unique theme and a new art medium would be chosen to express that theme. The sketch process is the first step in resolving the theme and is often the longest one. Once a final direction is realized though, things move fairly quickly; final artwork is created with small adjustments in design getting worked out along the way and lastly, all artwork is transferred into a digital format for print.


Who are some of your artistic inspirations? Whose work do you really enjoy?

We draw artistic inspiration from so many things!! The natural world is a great source of inspiration as is the Fine Art world. Peter is a big history buff and also loves the mechanical side of the design process – figuring out how things work and the craft involved. With playing cards we are mostly drawn to old European decks. The colors, line work and patterns are really beautiful on these decks as were the processes that created them – chrome lithography, hand-brushed and stenciled colors right down to the way the paper was made – and led the way for so many of the decks we see in use today. We were some of the first designers to employ hand drawn imagery for the artwork in our decks and it has been very cool to see many of the designers that have entered the market after us appreciate that approach and try to incorporate an element of hand drawn work in their decks as well. But ultimately, the way you make your art really doesn't matter as much as your ability to express what it is you want to say successfully – for us it just so happened that a more traditional process was the best one.


There is a question that seems to be on many Playing Card aficionados’ minds as of late. Uusi had gone into this card series stating it would consist of six decks. Well, we're getting close to the end of that series...will we see Uusi deck designs after this series reaches its end?

Well...I guess the rule of thumb here is to say, "never say never"! But in all honesty, this series has taken an enormous amount of time to create and there are definitely other projects we have been itching to get to at the studio. We just signed a licensing contract with the wonderful, Brooklyn-based design manufacturer, Areaware, for our wood animals sets that we are really excited about and for whom we will also be designing other objects and functional items for the home. So I think when deck number six is finally finished and shipped we will feel a great sense of accomplishment in having created such a considered catalog of work, but we will also feel an equal amount of relief to be at its end. I am sure we will always remember this experience as one of the most enjoyable we have had as designers – but since we are not at the finish line yet! - and we are still very much immersed in this community, we are mostly just enjoying it as it is unfolding and whatever the future brings it brings. We hope after we are finished with this series though, we still can participate on some level with the people and companies we have gotten to know and respect and who have made this whole journey so much more enjoyable!



I can’t thank Peter and Linnea enough for their time and collaboration on putting this piece together. Uusi truly has its own unique vision and style, and it’s evident not only in the five decks that they’ve brought to us so far, but in their non-playing card work as well.

If you would like to learn more about Uusi and the work they do, you can visit them on their website or on Facebook.  And don’t forget to check out the newly released Hotcakes Playing Cards now Live on Kickstarter!

This exclusive 1-on-1 is written by Anthony Ingrassia for kardify. No part of this article can be reproduced without written permission from the author. You can check out Anthony's awesome collection at sparkzcollector.

Designers: UUSI's Creative Process

In the continuation of our designers series, we are honoured to have a guest post from Linnea of UUSI, creators of popular playing card decks such as BlueBlood, Bohemia, Royal Optik and Pagan. This month, Linnea shares with us about working together with Peter as a husband & wife team, the creative process behind creating a deck of cards, and how an artwork is finalised. USSI's upcoming project Hotcakes (launching on 26th April - 10am EST) will be used as examples in this article.


One of the questions Peter and I are always asked is how do you guys work together? I think this question is made up of part curiosity for the actual design / art process we use in the studio and part incredulity that we would actually want to work together as we are not only partners in a design studio, but husband & wife. Truth be told, whenever I hear that "Husband & Wife Team" moniker I cringe. What immediately comes to mind is an insanely dysfunctional, unprofessional work environment with a very combative, emotionally charged atmosphere. I've been around those situations and they are claustrophobic. But when they work, they are really fun and the environment is incredibly trusting and supportive. I think at Uusi we manage to walk that line of keeping personal issues at home (mostly!) and bring to the studio our creative energy and productive focus.

Hotcakes Card Backs

When we decided to work on a six-deck series for Uusi we had been making art and design together for quite some time and the creative process was well established. Peter is the founder of Uusi, but his official role at the studio is Art Director and mine is Lead Creative. We both brainstorm for a deck's theme and once one is decided on my role is to explore the visual possibilities for the deck. This usually requires a lot of sketching out of ideas, color directions, medium choice, etc. During this process Peter will come in and start to winnow out what works and what doesn't until we are down to about two or three different looks from which one is finally chosen. Finding the look and theme is definitely the longest process in creating these decks.

Hotcakes Heart Court

Once a look and theme are established the deck's art work moves fairly quickly from there. The final artwork is worked on by whomever has the strongest skill in the chosen medium. With "Hotcakes" I created sketches for the characters and Peter came in to ink the line work using a traditional pen and ink technique that he is skilled in. After the sketches have been inked they come back to me and I added the color to them. This time the color was produced with markers and tempera paints as we wanted the look to be highly illustrative and playful. The final artwork is then scanned into the computer and laid into the playing card templates. Each card has its own digital file that is then converted into a working digital format for print. When all the digital files are ready they are then dropped onto USPCC's server and their Post Production team rips them into a master template for print.

Hotcakes Ace of Spades

The video embedded below is part of our soon-to-be-launched, "Hotcakes" Kickstarter video and shows both Peter and I working on the the Queen of Hearts artwork for this deck. The video begins with Peter inking in the pencil sketch and then my adding the color. Hope you enjoy it and we hope to see you over on Kickstarter next weekend for the launch of our fifth deck, "Hotcakes!"




This exclusive guest post is written by Linnea of UUSI for Kardify. No part of this article can be reproduced without written permission from the author. You can check out UUSI's work online at UUSI.us

News: The Pagan Playing Card Deck by Uusi

Uusi release a few shot of their upcoming deck - the "Pagan" Playing Card deck, the fourth deck in Uusi's six deck series that will be launching on Kickstarter the third week in November.

All imagery in the deck (from court cards through to the deck's back and tuck box design) have been hand-painted in oil to give the decks imagery a deeply luminous and painterly feel.

The deck imagery was inspired by Pagan era culture and certainly gives a new meaning to the term, "wild card"! Stunning artwork as usual and

Kickstarter: ROYAL OPTIK Court Spades and Custom Seal Unveiled

The instantly backed ROYAL OPTIK Playing Card project by Uusi unveiled the custom seal and the court spades, including the Ace of Spades today on their Kickstarter. The seal was released in direct response to being backed 300% the initial goal amount. They currently have over $30K in pledge money and will cease taking backers on June 17, 2013.

Here is a look at the custom seal courtesy of their Kickstarter project page:

And the Court Spades: