Alex Matencio on Designing Cardistry Touch's ESCP_TH!S Playing Cards

The team at Cardistry Touch teased their latest deck on Instagram. ESCP_TH!S is the fifth deck after the 2019 release, DERIVE.
Designed by Alex Matencio of Zalem Industries, the deck is not only stylish but visually eye-catching with a street/tech wear vibe. According to Alex,

The creative brief was to focus on techwear, to adapt to the general identity of Touch and to their style. It was challenging, but that's how you learn even more :).

The faces sport a one-way design deck. On the design, Alex continued,

It was definitely tougher than expected. After multiple test ideas of the back, I started nearly from scratch again but not for the back design. I first found the idea that became final for the front face and then adapted the back using a couple of ideas the Touch guys and I kept from the previous tests.

The deck is kept secure in Cardistry Touch's iconic swivel box. Incorporating the design elements into the tuck is not as simple as it looks. Alex explained,

Designing their swivel box, while easy since I had the art done already, started as a mindf*** of graphic "continuity" for me. You may not see it from here but if you already have a Touch Swivel box home, try and tear it apart and you'll see the unexpected complexity of it. It's a 3D puzzle. Hopefully, Ladislas did his best to explain it to me so that we get it done by the same afternoon, which we did.

However, there are complexities in terms of the designing the swivel box compared to a normal tuck box. The swivel box is split into two with one part overlays the other parts. Alex continues,

Keeping the continuity of the design on all sides without a break is what was hard to figure out in the beginning.

On the art direction, while designing ESCP_TH!S, Alex described,

Also, for my clients, be it @cardistrytouch, had a pretty good understanding of graphic design in general and of their own visual identity, hence making working for them a delight where they would understand my propositions and arguments very easily. The way they bounced back on my ideas made me enjoy every part of the process and allowed me to challenge everything I was doing and propose better and better ideas. Last but not least I'm also glad I decided to restart nearly from scratch in September since my new ideas came out, in my opinion, much better than my first ones that were too messy.

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A post shared by Cardistry Touch (@cardistrytouch) on Mar 20, 2020 at 11:30am PDT

ESCP_TH!S will be printed by USPCC for the FIRST time. This is due to the C9² finish that Cardistry Touch has been using is not available anymore. The team is currently working closely with Cartamundi to find a brand new finish, even better than the last one, which will take time.

The deck is scheduled to be released on March 26 at 19:00CET.

The Art of Thirdway Industries' Giovanni Meroni

Wow...! Thirdway Industries is turning 5 this year. We've been following founder Giovanni Meroni since the Discourse Deck Design Competition (DDDC) back in 2014, when he first started designing playing cards. Since then, Giovanni has progressively improved his style with every deck he designed. Have an exclusive look at the evolution of Giovanni's work, from Evil Deck to Betrayers. Commentary by Giovanni.

The ones who know me as a playing cards designer probably don’t know that my “old” signature style was only vector shapes without lines (above). I’ve learned this style when I studied graphic design in the academy, and used it for a few years for illustration freelance jobs.

My first deck, The Evil Deck, was made with a minimal flat style - without lines. With all the cards illustrated, it was a tremendous effort.

During the production of The Evil Deck, I’ve learned a lot about playing cards world - I’ve met other designers, great people and awesome customers. I started collecting and I’ve seen some beautiful decks that inspired me a lot.



I’ve studied an old Modiano classic deck and, for the first time in my career, I’ve introduced lines in my illustrations. Welcome, Delirium Prism!



I absolutely loved the look of Delirium, and I wanted to try it on more human and realistic characters. I wanted a “classic” deck of cards, a sort of a standard of my newborn brand Thirdway Industries: Omnia.

During the design process, I’ve made it a little less classic than I was planning to do, especially because of the gorgeous Queens.



My “lines” style evolved a lot since Omnia: In Dedalo I wanted huge courts, more realistic and complex.



In SINS and Eva, I’ve reduced the figures a little, so I had more space for bodies. I’ve also improved the expressions of the courts.



After doing so many realistic and dark decks, I felt it was time to return doing something fun and colorful. Something with the same vibe of Delirium, designed after several years of experience in playing cards design. I’ve decided to call this deck Lunatica, and it’s probably one of the craziest ones I’ve designed.



Odissea is probably my most mature work with my signature style so far. I’ve merged the best part of SINS with Dedalo, adding details, expressions, and variety.



After Odissea, I wanted to take a break from my usual style, so I’ve checked my first works and decided to try to use a flat style again… after 5 years of experience. The result... Betrayers, a deck that uses flat shapes and gradient on realistic and complex figures.



Now I am designing a new deck, Monolith, with my usual style, but a completely different theme. I am a chaotic person, and I absolutely don’t have any idea about how my style will evolve in the next years - I always tried steadily to improve what I do, so hopefully, it will get better!

To keep up-to-date on anything Thirdway Industries, visit them at thirdway.it or follow them on Facebook.

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Designers: Designing the 52 Plus Joker 2017 Club Deck with Alex Chin Part I

It's been awhile since we had a designers series article. This month, we are honoured to have a guest post by Alex Chin, creators behind the stunning 52 Plus Joker Club deck for 2017. In part one of this two-part series, Alex shares with us the inspiration and the design process behind creating the club deck. 

I designed this year's 52 Plus Joker Club deck with the concept of pulpwood in mind. The idea of paper creation as a starting point to create playing cards always intrigued me and this deck tells the story about it.

Inspiration
The running theme throughout the deck really emphasized texture so this entire deck goes above and beyond to highlight those aspects on the deck. The box design features a Mulberry bark tree covering through 3 of the four sides so that it looks unassuming. The fourth side that faces out reveals beautiful gold foiled lattice work and a representation of the designs inside.

I liked this because it helped tell the story of how people harvested the paper from Mulberry trees back then. The box design is the first of its kind to utilize a dual layer tuck box. There have been sleeves before but this was an actual two-layer tuck box.

This was important because we were able to create two different textures without using any embossing plates. The top layer texture features a bark/wood feel that is highlighted on the face with the gold foiling. The bottom layer features the offset detail.

The back design features Expert's Perfecta Foil which allowed me to do a two color foil on the back which turned out spectacular. The gold lattice work with the green shimmering leaves really helped highlight the hierarchy of the back design.

Design
Composition Study: I typically start with the back design and start out with sketching.  This is the composition item that I ended up using.

Depth Testing/ Contrast Models: The important part to note here is that this was based on landscape architecture- a bird's eye view. The idea is that you're looking down at a garden that supports the Mulberry Tree that is going to provide us with this paper. I'm playing for balance here because typically I'll do contrast models of what looks correct.  What is going to be light, what is going to be dark. Because we have plants, growth is a thing so depth became a big focus.

Join us next week for the second part of the designer series with Alex where we look at textures, vectorizing, face cards design and the tuck box of the 52 Plus Joker Club deck.


This exclusive guest post is written by Alex Chin for Kardify. No part of this article can be reproduced without written permission from the author. You can check out Alex's work at Seasons Playing Cards.

7 Questions with Harold Apples, Designer of National Playing Cards

Theory11's National Playing Cards were inspired by the mystery and the pursuit of power. Designed by Harold Apples, every aspect of the deck was designed from scratch. From the gorgeous Aces, Jokers, to the court cards that are filled with vibrant, colorful illustrations in a flat, retro and textured style artwork. The tuck box is beautifully embossed and detailed with striking gold and black foil, inside and out.

Just prior to the release of the deck last week, we were able to catch-up with Harold Apples for a quick chat about his design background, the collaboration with Theory11, designing the National deck and his advice to aspiring designers and artists.

Could you introduce yourself to our readers? What is your design background?
Hey there, I’m Adam M. from Kentucky and I currently make art under the name Harold Apples (@haroldapples). I’ve been involved in the arts all of my life, I even went to an art magnet high school that got me thinking of a career in the arts at an early age. College found me taking the traditional design/art student route, while at the same time pursuing music with friends. If you’ve ever been in a band you know how much traveling and performing can teach you. I think everything about being in a band directly affected and immensely helped my design career— You have to learn to work well with others and compromise on an outcome that you want to remain proud of; you learn that if you’re not pouring yourself into everything you do and letting that shine through then no one will give a crap about your work, and you learn above all how stinking hard you have to work to make good things happen and to get noticed. Almost all of my favorite designers have been in bands and I don’t think it’s a coincidence.

Fast forward and after 10 years of doing the band thing semi-full time I settled down, got married, and took my first proper job at an agency out west in Denver. Most designers out there know that small (but serious) design agencies can be immensely taxing, all consuming and just plain tough. The agency world helped me to become a faster and more focused designer because you’re always working to get home at a decent hour and being slow doesn’t do you any favors. This type of agency also forces you to figure out what you really want for your career, because:

> you start to think after your first month of not having a day off that there must be more to life
> you start considering leaving design altogether
> working at a coffee shop again starts to sound more appealing
> and you find yourself coming up with elaborate schemes to live life to its fullest without the need for money
> becoming a freegan and hitchhiking across Europe… that sort of thing.

Sadly I didn’t do this… man… really should’ve done this— instead, my wife and I moved back to the south to take a job on the client side with the parent company of Lonely Planet, the world's largest guidebook and travel information provider. This proved to be the absolute best career decision for me as I was allowed a lot of creative freedom without pressures from external clients. My nights became less consumed with my day job, which allowed me to pursue my passion for illustration… that pretty much gets me up to today.

We love your art style and have been following your work for quite awhile on social media. What are some of the most memorable work you have done?
A lot of my favorite work hasn’t really found its way to Instagram. I started working under Harold Apples a little under a year ago as a way to separate my illustration work from my work as a creative and art director. Honestly, the National Deck represents the first larger project that ‘Harold Apples’ has really completed. Most of the year for me has been about experimenting and just ‘doing’. I started lots of projects and have a pretty bad track record at finishing… definitely trying to work on that in 2017.

Projects that I hope to complete this year include: A children’s book my wife and I are working on about a certain writer from the 1800’s, a book of photos I’ve taken of my favorite dead blues musicians headstones (I have lots more miles to put on the odometer before this one is finished up) and a line of merchandise that I’m going to sell on my soon to launch storefront: applesaucesupplyco.com

The National Playing Cards will be your first playing card deck. How did you and Theory11 end up collaborating together?
Originally I was planning on producing a deck all on my own. I started approaching letterpress studios who were making decks that I loved, even talked to Dan and Dave about doing something with the deck (super lovely guys btw, stinking love the work they do) and I stumbled upon Studio on Fire in Chicago who produces all of the tuck cases for Theory11.

Their work is just phenomenal. I connected with SoF and they pointed me to Theory11 and Jonathan Bayme the CEO of Theory 11 helped me cost everything out and got me on my way to producing a deck. A couple months went by and he approached me about collaborating on the deck; he was following the development on Instagram and thought it might be a good addition to the Theory11 deck lineup. To me it was a no-brainer — Theory11 has such an extensive reach and their work is so respected and utterly gorgeous that making the deck with them seemed like the best way to take the deck to the next level.

Can you describe the National Playing Cards and why you’re passionate about it?
The deck for me has almost been more about an illustration process than one original concept. I had been playing around with this flat, sort of retro, very textured illustration style that was feeling very natural to me.

On a whim one night I illustrated a King of Hearts, posted it to Instagram and got a lot of positive reaction and encouragement to keep going. So I did. Over time the deck sort of morphed into this sort of secret society tribute thing. I got obsessed with working in a ridiculous amount of symbology to basically make the Illuminati's official deck of cards… kinda silly, but lots of fun.

About halfway through the process, we decided to name the deck National as a tribute to the long gone National Playing Card Company that produced beautiful decks until the late 1800’s. I’d like to think we’re bringing the brand back to life.

What was your most brilliant breakthrough when designing the deck?
Honestly, the defining moment was the decision to team up with Jonathan Bayme at Theory 11. Jonathan is crazy motivated, high energy has excellent standards and he’s willing to go through round after round of revisions until things are perfect. He really played a big hand in pushing the box design to a great place that I think we are all happy with. Without Theory11, the deck would have wound up in a wildly different place, or possibly not even produced at all. For the quality that I wanted, the cost was going to be pretty large, and I was nervous about printing with no distribution in place and basically going it on my own. Jonathan definitely made it happen.

What are your favorite playing card decks?
All growing up I had the same trashed and worn blue Bicycle deck, which I think will always have a special place in my heart. As far as modern decks go, I love Citizens by Theory 11 (shameless plug). It is a feat of design and printing (I have no idea how printing that ultra fine line work is even physically possible on a letterpress… Studio on Fire has registration skills to pay the bills!), Dan and Dave’s Maker’s deck from last year is also gorgeous and mono-width line work is just right up my alley.

Also hailing from my hometown of Louisville Ky, Tyler Deeb’s Misc Goods deck is a modern classic, everything about it is just absolutely unique and original and it has a timeless quality that I’m totally in love with. I’ll be hanging on to that one for years.

Thank you so much for indulging my questions. Do you have any other words of wisdom for other aspiring artists and designers?
If you’re getting started in design, I would encourage you to just ‘make’ and experiment. As a young designer, it’s really easy to get overwhelmed with feelings of inadequacy while striving to make your work live up to your favorite designers and artists. What you don’t see from your idols’ work online is the years and decades of refining and learning that went into a particular style or a finished piece.

Every great designer and artist have to put their time in to find the style, tone and subject matter that’s right for them, it doesn’t come over night. It did for Prince…. But we all can’t be Prince. I had a ceramics professor in college that would always tell freshmen that "it’s not about quality, it's about quantity”. Because real learning, breakthroughs, and discoveries come from the doing of things. And the more you do, the more refined your work becomes and the more purposeful and thoughtful it becomes.

Awesome! Thank you for your time, Adam!


National Playing Cards are Made in the USA using FSC-certified paper derived from sustainable forests, vegetable-based inks, and starch-based laminates. Available NOW from Theory11.

Images courtesy of Adam Moore (@haroldapples) and taken from theory11.com

Designers: ‘Behind the scenes’ of Kings of India Playing Cards by Humble Raja

After a long hiatus of our designers series, we are honoured to have a guest post by the team from Humble Raja, creators behind the exotic Kings of India Playing Cards currently funding on Kickstarter. In part one of this two-part series, the team shares with us about the creative process behind creating a deck of cards, and how illustrations are finalised. The Kings of India project (to be funded on 17th August) will be used as examples in this article.

A name like Chandragupta Maurya may not strike a chord with many in the western world, but this heavyweight from ancient history was the founder of one of India’s most powerful empires. He is just one amongst the 12 legendary monarchs featured in our Kings of India deck, a project that began with a curiosity surrounding our history. [Back the project on Kickstarter]

We created the brand Humble Raja as a means to explore the fascinating world of Indian culture through design, with this deck being the first product. Let us introduce ourselves; we are Bhavesh and Reena Mistry, a husband and wife team from Montréal that operates the design and branding studio Apartment 4. Our backgrounds are in engineering and architecture, respectively, which gives us a unique approach to our creative work. Now with Humble Raja, we want to share bits of our culture with everyone through interesting mediums, as with our Kings of India deck. This is just as much a playing card project as it is a history and illustration one. Let’s go behind the scenes to take you through our creative process.

As newbies to the playing card world, we begun our research with the origins of the deck and how it came to be what it is today. A great resource was Sir William Gurney Benham’s book - Playing cards: History of the Pack and Explanations of its Many Secrets. It uncovers how the cards evolved from full portrait French characters into what most people recognize today as the modern, reversible British deck; and this is where we started our work.

Firstly, the standard structure of a playing card deck - four suits and a King, Queen and Jack for each, fit perfectly with introducing four royal families, or dynasties, with the Jack being a worthy successor. Seeking out the four greatest dynasties of India meant searching through a more than 2,400 years of history to the earliest known dynasties, a large task in itself. For us, the title of ‘greatness’ was reserved for those monarchs who showed extraordinary military strength, economic policy, religious tolerance, cultural advancements and left a lasting legacy; our top contenders being from the Maurya, Gupta, Chola and Mughal dynasties.

Finding the actual King, Queen and Jack of each dynasty proved to be a bit simpler as there were always a pair of rulers who shone above the rest. For the Mauryas, this meant our King was none other than Chandragupta, a fearless warrior who overthrew a powerful king to found India’s largest unified empire seen in its history (up until the Mughal empire almost 2000 years later). His wife Durdhara became our Queen card and their grandson, the great king known as Ashoka the Great became the Jack of Hearts.

A bulk of the time goes into design the court cards and it really helped to use the structure of the British courts as a way to guide our characters - from their orientation and composition to what they were holding and how patterns were used. As with any history-based project, we must rely on what had been documented all those years ago. With certain dynasties this meant there was a series of cave paintings and crumbling sculptures to go by whereas the Mughals had erected many monuments, documented daily life in the courts and commissioned portraits, making our job much easier.

Image credit: http://www.asianart.com/articles/markel/14_det.html

With each court card, we wanted to best represent the character by communicating what they would have worn, the weapons they adorned, their hair and clothing of the time, completed with patterns seen in sculpture and architecture. Our research was conducted by looking at artifacts, paintings, sculptures and even folklore written about these these kings. Take the Jack of Clubs for example, Chandragupta II; he was a military powerhouse who was credited with conquering over 21 empires over his reign; for this we decorated the Jack in military gear, outfitted with a set of arrows for a steel bow, a Gupta-era weapon notable for its strength and construction. Chandragupta II’s sash is finished with 9 gems, representing the 9 extraordinary members of his cabinet who excelled in literature, medicine, astronomy and medicine. The book he holds with him is a famous Sanskrit poem written by Kalidasa during the Gupta period.

Our illustration style comes from our intent to approach India’s culture in a new way; making our cards black and white goes against the common association of India with color, but it is not our aim to make this product look like it came from India necessarily. Using a single lineweight to illustrate this deck allowed the patterns and details to really shine through and added a level of simplicity to a detail-intense project.

The drawing process for us begins on paper. We first trace over a British deck court card and get a feel for the structure and elements of each card and start to adapt it to our character. We use an Art-o-graph light table to trace every iteration and it allows us to flip the card without having to draw it twice. We work collaboratively with each other, making sure to pass the drawing between us to get a second look at the progress. The drawing gets scanned onto the computer and traced using basic geometries in Adobe Illustrator. At this stage, we start to generate patterns and get the character to a certain level of detail.

Then the fun begins; we make print outs of these computer-drawn cards and start making tweaks by hand, over and over again until we are happy with it. We had an instance with the Jack of Clubs where it went all the way to the computer stage and ended up being scrapped and restarted because he just didn’t look right. We hope the efforts that went into this deck make your experience with it all the more beautiful, inspiring and memorable.

Kings of India Playing Cards is on Kickstarter until August 16th; a few days left for those who haven’t yet ordered their deck. The deck will be printed by the USPCC and encased in an intricate tuck, covered in gold & embossed illustration. We look forward to seeing them in your hands this December.

If you missed us on Kickstarter, be sure to sign up on our website humbleraja.com for a notification of when the decks will be available. This exclusive guest post is written by the team at Humble Raja for Kardify. No part of this article can be reproduced without written permission from the author. 

At the Table: 7 Question with Lance T. Miller

Its been some time since Lance T. Miller has been "Visible" in the community. The man who brought us the Actuators and Gargoyle decks was assumed to have taken a break from playing cards and designing by many, but the fact of the matter is that Lance has been very busy and involved in the playing card community, just not in his usual way. He's taken a behind the scenes roll in many projects as well as being involved in events like the 1st Annual International Cardistry Open.

I'm sure I'm not alone in being pleasantly surprised when Lance Miller's name attached itself to the Murphy's Magic "At the Table" deck, commemorating Murphy's At the Table On Line lecture series.

So it goes without saying that this new development got me very curious to find out what else Lance has been up to that we may not know about and what's around the corner for him. One quick message and in true Lance T. Miller form he was more than happy to accommodate us with a little of his time to catch up a bit.

Enjoy

You've been a bit "out of the spotlight" in the community for some time, what have you been up to?
I've been working behind the scenes, with some of the best designers and artists, consulting and developing new and exciting projects that the community is sure to love. I also got to work hand in hand with Kardify to bring about the International Cardistry Open. I've collaborated, planned, and executed more than 5 deck projects (yet to release). I've also been studying fiercely. Everything from illustration technique to graphic design, to Spanish language and even a bit of computer programming. I've been way more active in the card scene than a lot of people realize and even if I'm not in the spotlight, I'm always there.

I think many people were pleasantly surprised to find out your involvement with Murphy's Magic "At the Table" deck, could you share how that came to be?
Jason Brumbalow and I have been talking about collaborating for a long time. Last year, we sat down and dreamed up some ideas and went to work. It's been an amazing experience and I'm thankful I get to work with such amazing people.

While the deck is inspired by the Murphy's Magic feature by the same name, what inspired the concept and design?
We wanted to harken back to a simpler era and capture some of the feel of classic casino decks. Workers, ones that could be used readily to perform magic but would also be classy enough to sit down and enjoy some poker. It needed to fit Murphy's aesthetic goals for the At the Table lecture series and have a sleek professional appeal. A clean diamond back pattern utilizing the logo in a typographic pattern and a slight fade on the edges was just the ticket!

The "At the Table" deck is a bit of a departure from the style we're used to seeing, do you find yourself pushing your talent in new directions?
I'm being challenged constantly to push my talent in crazy ways. I'm learning new ways of concepting projects and creating art, design techniques that will blow your mind, and mostly I'm learning to trust my instinct. All of which is really helping to create some really cool projects.

With the success of the Actuators and Gargoyle decks, and now the At the Table deck, has your creative process changed of evolved over time?
It certainly has! I used to sit and fret over whether the community would accept me if I changed a style or tried something different. So I'd almost always find myself creating the same way or getting upset that it didn't feel as full as one of my previous decks art-wise. Now I know that's part of the process and typically avoid the steps of trying to make things too complicated or feeling like I have to make my art a certain way.

What concepts and designs have you enjoyed from the playing card industry as of late?
Shout out to Jason there. The Run decks are magnificent! I remember seeing a little bit of the concept art for it early on and then when they launched, I was floored!

Can we expect any other surprises in the near future from Lance Miller?
Most definitely! I've learned that keeping a few tricks in my hat is exactly what every good magician and designer should do.

We want to thank Lance for his time and are truly excited to see what's next for him in the industry, one thing is for certain, whatever Lance produces is sure to be unique. Keep up to date on what's gong on in Lance's creative mind by following him on Facebook as well as his cardistry page at  Lance Miller's Cardistry and of course on his main site lancemillerdecks.com

Designers: Paul Roman Matinez on 11 Things All Failed Kickstarter Projects Do Wrong

This month on our Designers series, we are delighted to have a guest post from Paul Roman Martinez, artist, illustrator, and designer. Paul's run four successful kickstarter campaigns in the comics and tabletop games categories, including the The Flight Deck Playing Card series. This really insightful article was first published on Paul's personal blog and has generated a lot of positive comments and was republished on a few other sites. This article is republished here on Kardify with Paul's permission.

I’ve done research into hundreds of campaigns, following them from start to finish, trying to analyze what works and what doesn’t so I can implement those strategies into my own projects. Here are a few of most common mistakes I see people make that hopefully you can avoid. I’ve seen amazing projects fail because they missed a few of the simple things listed here. While no one can guarantee success, I can promise a better chance of reaching your funding goal if you fix these issues in your next project!

1) Poor Thumbnail 

It may seem like a small detail, but the thumbnail image is the key to the project. It is the first visual representation of your work. Imagine it this way: Food companies put millions of dollars into developing their packaging so that their boxes stand out on a shelf amongst dozens of other boxes. Just like someone pushing a cart through an aisle of groceries, people are scrolling through crowded pages full of projects waiting for something to catch their eye.

Here’s What You Do: 
Go to kickstarter and browse the section you want to be listed in. Take a screenshot of the projects when they’re all listed on a page together and pick one to photoshop your project thumbnail over. You will use this photoshop image to design your perfect project thumbnail. Adjust the color and layout so that the most distracted browser can easily spot it amongst all the other thumbnails. A good project thumbnail is interesting but also tells people at a glance what they are backing.

2) Poor Project Title and Subtitle 

If you managed to get a browser’s attention with your thumbnail, the next thing they’re going to look at is your Title and Subtitle. This is the only text they can see through the browsing page and will contain the most important keywords for the search function. What is your project? What themes does it contain? You have to ask yourself what things your potential backers are looking for. I’ve seen—even experienced—project creators mess this up. I saw a project creator who had made about 8 different projects, many of which went over $100,000 and one over $500,000, decide to go with a simplified title. It was only a couple words and didn’t really explain what the project was. I think he was hoping to tempt people to click the link by being mysterious; I guess he figured after grossing close to a million dollars total on his projects, he could start taking some risks. Well, the project did not show up in any of the standard searches his previous backers would be making. I went to the forums exclusively for fans of the type of product he makes, (I’m being cryptic here about their product, can you tell?) and no one was talking about him. It was like a secret campaign no one knew about and it received a tiny fraction of his previous project’s funding.

Here’s What You Do: 
Go to kickstarter and find someone making something like yours. Get specific. Are you making a space themed comic book? Search “space comic book.” Are you making an Old West themed tabletop game? Search “Old West” in the tabletop games section. Do this a lot for a lot of different keywords. If you do it enough, you will start seeing some repeats at the top. Those are the people who, no matter what search terms you used for “space comic book” or “Old West tabletop game,” have figured out a way to show up. That’s what you need. And do this while the project is running as well. Don’t be afraid to change what’s not working. If you’re producing an Old West game that features horses prominently, for example, and halfway through you realize you’re getting a lot of equestrian fans because of your fully painted horse cards, then throw some keywords in for them. Mention horses in the subtitle! You do not want a single Old West fan to miss your project because you forgot an important key word in your subtitle or main title.

3) Unclear Description of the Product and the Goal 

This one should be easy. You know exactly what you need the money for, so your backers should know too, right? Well I see people screw this one up more times than I can count, especially in the comic book section!!! I know you want to tell us what your book is about. I know it has a great story arc involving a Sci-Fi post-apocalyptic future with robots that transform into steampunk zombies to fight off the coming of Chtuhlu (that’s my next project; don’t steal it). But you need to put at the top of your project in clear letters in less than two sentences what you are actually making. Is it a comic? How many pages? What dimensions? Color or B+W? These things should be there at the very top. Is it a tabletop game? How many players? How long does the game take to play? What ages? What does it come with?

Here’s What You Do: 
Come up with a new elevator pitch for your project. I know you’ve spent months honing the perfect two sentences to describe the plot of your book or your game, but now you need the perfect two sentences to describe what you are doing with all your awesome backers’ money! And then, hit return twice and start writing your plot summary.

4) No Prior Fan Outreach 

If a tree falls in the forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound? If a project launches on kickstarter and you have no fans and maybe 150 facebook friends, does anyone notice? People are always asking me how to get more backers to see their projects—how to get more pledges. Well the real work to reach backers can start over a year before you launch. The best way is to build up your social networking presence. You start posting development pictures early. If you don’t have development pictures, start a pintrest with pictures of projects similar to yours. Whatever you do, just start it early. If you set up a facebook page two weeks before your project launches and hope your project will go viral because you want it to, then you’re out of luck.

Here’s What You Do: 
Start connecting on every social media network you can and start early! Learn how the different networks work. Getting traction with a post on Reddit is totally different than getting traction on Facebook or Pintrest. But most of them start with a great image. Take the best image you can and start pimping that around. If it doesn’t take off in one section, wait a few days and try again with a different set of keywords or a different way of phrasing your heading. Look at what topics are trending in the Reddit sections for your type of project. How did they do it? The social networks change so often that there is not a single one I would recommend over the others. I can tell you right now, though, that you can get just as much attention with some great keywords and well placed pictures as you can with paid ads.

5) Not Explaining Why You are Qualified to Produce this Project

Maybe the art looks great; maybe the game looks great; maybe it all looks awesome. I’ve seen a lot of projects like that. Then I look at everything that is going into them and the amount of money they are looking for and I think, there’s no way this one person can pull this off. Depending on the scope of the project, you might need help. People are giving you money for a product that doesn’t exist yet. Now that Kickstarter has gone mainstream, there are tons and tons of people on there who think they can make money quickly with a project and then they’re in business. It takes a lot of skill to produce a good book, and it takes a lot of different types of skills to produce a great tabletop game. I tell people that self publishing my own tabletop game felt like sending five books to the printers at once. Every piece has to be prepared differently. Each part has a separate template and set of die lines and a different set of materials for you to sample and decide on. And all of this has to be done on a deadline.

Here’s What You Do:
Do your homework and then TELL people you’ve done your homework. Tell them about the hours you spent on forums getting feedback on your design. Tell them on your page about different printing techniques you’re researching. And also, make a mockup. Get into photoshop and manipulate an image to look like the cover of your book or game. Yes, maybe the game or book isn’t done yet, but you need to be able to get your backers to picture it. And if you can’t picture it, how will they?

6) Not Enough Art on the Page 

Both comic books and tabletop games are very visual mediums. Yes, they contain a lot of writing and gameplay, but what sells these mediums first? The visuals. Unless I’m looking at a project to review it, I usually don’t watch the videos for the projects I back. That’s right–I just skim the page. If I like it, I’ll back it. I’m sure a lot of people use Kickstarter this way. I’ve seen projects that have awesome videos but their pages aren’t filled in. That just doesn’t hook me. Did you know there are tons of people on Kickstarter who have backed a hundred projects or more? These power backers are on there every day, commenting on projects and reading updates. The video is a small two-to-five minute portion of the project experience. When pages aren’t there, or closeup of card artwork isn’t present, the whole project looks suspicious.

Here’s What You Do: 
Put some pages up. Sounds easy enough, right? But you’d be surprised. Put up some images with character bios if your comic is new; they don’t have to be long. Create some headers for sections of your pages in photoshop. Create some visual breaks in the product page. For tabletop games, you’re going to need multiple videos. One for gameplay, one for artwork, and maybe one for unboxing if you have a good demo. They don’t have to be long or super awesome, they just have to exist.

7) Not Enough Interaction with Backers 

Yes, I’m sure there have been successful six-figure projects that only did three updates and made two or three comments on their project pages, but these are not the norm. When I look at a great product and try to figure out why it didn’t get funded I immediately look at the comments and the updates. In the comments section, people can voice their frustration about a project, ask questions, or just say good luck. And the updates section is a great way to keep backers up to date and let them know you are working your ass off to create an awesome project.

Here’s What You Do: 
Make the first comment. Go ahead and do it. A lot of people are nervous and don’t want to be the first one to comment. Do it for them. Respond to every single comment. Do it; why not? Of course, if you get a super backer commenting a lot, you can always wait and respond to a couple at a time. But respond! Let these people know you are there if they need to ask or say something. And post an update every two to four days. There is no excuse for running a thirty day plus project and only having 3 updates. Is your project so boring you can’t think of a single new thing to say about it?

8) Not Treating the Kickstarter like an Event

This sort of goes along with comments and updates. What is a kickstarter campaign? For some it is a new and strange thing, like going to senior prom stag. You don’t know why you’re there, and you’re not going to talk to anyone. For others it’s become a routine part of business, and they have it down to an exact and very boring science. I’ve launched four projects for three very different products with three very unique fan bases. I’ve had the luxury of learning a whole new world with almost every campaign. If you want your kickstarter to be an event, then you need to make it an event.

Here’s What You Do:
You bring the party. Find reasons to create updates and find reasons for people to read them. Yes it is great to thank people, but who wants to read twenty updates filled with you being thankful and humbled by the support. Offer them new information. Show them pictures of you doing game testing. Show them pencils for pages in progress. Update them on manufacturing details, like receiving samples. If you can, save some surprise rewards to unleash during the project, especially during the dog days in the middle. Go to kicktraq.com and look up some succesful projects. Every one of them has a slump in the middle where they may even lose money. But good projects find a way to get new backers during those days. I have looked at projects with a spike in the middle. And everytime I see a spike, I can trace it back to the day it happened, look at their updates, and sure enough, it’s because they announced some super cool new feature about their projects. And no, I’m not just talking stretch goals.

9) Confusing Pledge Levels 

Some projects by nature will end up with a lot of different pledge levels. My playing card project almost doubled in pledge levels when I introduced some new limited edition decks. It can’t always be helped. But I have seen projects where I can’t even tell what pledge level the physical book comes in! If I have to spend more than three minutes reading the same three pledge levels in my price level over and over again to figure out which one comes with what, then I’m going to just move on to the next project.

Here’s What You Do: 
Write all of your pledge levels out on a document. Make sure you’re using the same nomenclature for rewards across the board. That means if you have a 1 Screenprinted T-shirt reward offered, don’t call it a t-shirt further down the page because you got tired of capitalizing the “T.” If you write the rewards the same way every time, it will make it easier for your backers to see what new items are popping up in later reward levels. If you can, make a graphic for all the reward items and show reward tiers visually. Not every project will have the space for this, but if you do, visual representations of levels can go a long way.

10) Missing or Poor Video 

There is no excuse to have a project with no video. Almost everyone has a phone with a camera on it, so when I see a project with no video, it just looks lazy to me. Or it looks like they’re not very serious about the project. The video is a great place to get on the screen and talk a little about what you’re trying to accomplish. If you have no video, then you just missed an opportunity to humanize your project and put a face to all the hard work people are seeing.

Here’s What You Do: 
Make a video, or get someone to make it for you. It doesn’t have to be long. At it’s simplest, it can be you sitting in a chair in your office describing what your goal is. From there, the sky is the limit. You can overlay artwork from your book or show yourself drawing a page. Time lapse drawing videos are always popular. If you have a tabletop game, you need to show gameplay. You just have to—there’s no avoiding it!

11) Confusing or Incomplete Shipping 

Did you know a kickstarter can raise all the money they need and still be a complete failure? We’ve all seen plenty of projects that ran out of money and couldn’t afford to ship the products to their backers who helped pay for it. Don’t be that person. If you don’t raise the funding you need, you can always re-launch a project and try again after you make some tweaks. But if you fail to deliver, or worse yet, deliver to stores and not your backers, then you may never get to run another crowd funding campaign again.

Here’s What You Do:
Get a scale. They’re cheap! Go do it. Package up some stuff that is the size of the product you’re making. Go on google maps and look up the address of a Starbucks at the farthest point in the country you are in and estimate shipping. Then, find a Starbucks in France or Australia (two of the most expensive countries for me to ship to from the United States) and estimate shipping to those addresses. Also look up Canada. If you live in South Florida or Southern California like me, then shipping to Canada can be just as expensive as shipping to Great Britain. And make sure whatever surcharge you place on shipping you explain to your backers. If you’ve done your homework and priced everything out properly,m then you shouldn’t have much to explain. You can just say, I checked the prices, and that’s how much it costs!

So there you have it—11 ways to keep your crowdfunding campaign from failing. I guarantee that if you follow these steps, you will have an interesting campaign that will at least entertain some backers along the way. Whether or not you will make a profit, well, I can’t guarantee that!


This exclusive guest post is originally written by Paul Roman Martinez on his personal blog and republished on Kardify with Paul's permission. No part of this article can be reproduced without written permission from the author.

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