Here's July Issue of Kardify Magazine

Here's the latest issue of Kardify Magazine on Patreon for our Patrons who pledge $3 or more on our Patreon page. Issue #26 compiles selected articles we’ve published from mid-Jun to mid-July. The goal is to help you stay on top of the latest playing card news, releases and previews.

Also, don't forget to check out our new reward tiers on Patreon! The new tiers include monthly desktop and smartphone wallpapers, mystery deck shipped to you every 4 months of ongoing contribution, social media shout-outs, and multiple sponsorship tiers! Check it out!

Funds received from the magazine will help us keep the site running and growing, and bringing new quality content to you. Our aim is to support designers by backing on crowd-funded projects and supporting magic and playing cards retailers with their new releases. If you want to support us, please head over to our Patreon page. If you have an idea for an article you would like us to pursue, do get in contact with us. We hope you enjoy the read. In this issue:

+ Jerry's Nugget: EPCC's reprint of the iconic Jerry’s Nugget Casino has smashed it's funding goal!
+ The Official Cardistry-Con 2019 Deck: Check-out the new deck by Art of Play released for the event in Portland, OR.
+ Butterfly: One of the best-marked deck in the market featuring beautifully designed card back in stunning foil.
+ Order: We answer your questions about the new deck by Thirdway Industries.
+ Provision: Find out more about Theory11's new release inspired by the history and culture of the city of Philadelphia.
+ Zebra King: Have a look at the eye-catching deck featuring contrasting black and white stripes of the zebra.
+ Ace Fulton's Casino: The vintage casino inspired deck now in Pink!
+ Black Ops 4 Zombies: Check out the officially licensed product based on Activision's successful "Call of Duty" video game franchise.

… and more! 53 pages of articles and deck images. Enjoy!

The Deal with Mr. Fulton Part I: Buck Twins, and Creating Playing Cards

For this exclusive interview, we are honored to have a guest post from Austin Perez (Instagram: @austin100s). In part one of this guest post, Austin interviews Brad Fulton (@fultonplayingcards) for an insight behind Fulton's brand, relationship with the Buck twins, history of Cardistry and creating playing cards. Enjoy!

Playing cards are used for various reasons. Whether it’s playing a game of poker, performing magic, conning people with Three Card Monty, or making moves for your cardistry video. All these things involve the use of the hands to show why the cards are there. They need you to make something out of them.

Fulton’s Playing Cards are quite peculiar in a way it seems. They tell you stories by you just looking at them. From the cards to the tuck no detail is ever spared. The creator intended for the users to be able to look at them and go, “Wow, I wonder where that place is…” That creator is Californian native Brad Samuel Fulton. Mr. Fulton and his love for playing cards have been influential in the custom playing card world since its earliest days. From working with Dan and Dave Buck to now he has been a voice for the storyteller and artist that can be formed with a medium that is meant to be hands-on. Today, he takes time out of his forever busy schedule to sit down and talk.

So what really brought you to playing cards? Could you recall your first memories of it?
My first memories of playing cards were probably like most Americans. I played “Go Fish” and draw poker with my grandmother and never really thought about their design. Cards to me were Bicycle or Tally-Ho. In fact, playing cards seemed so standardized that it was hard to imagine changing them—kind of like money—nobody imagines redesigning the five-dollar bill. That all changed when I met Dave Buck when we were very young adults. For years I’d go with him to Costco where the Buck Twins would buy the mixed brick boxes of Bicycles. The twins would open two bricks in the store and remove half the color from one to create either a totally solid red or blue brick not mixed. It was the first time I thought about playing card colors.

As a playing card brand what was the first big challenge that really made you go all in, win or lose with this market?
I never thought about starting a brand. Clip Joint was a passion for me. I had the idea and needed to bring it to life. There was no spreadsheet forecasting sales, or even thinking about making money. It wasn’t a cash grab. I’m an obsessive person and it is was pure bliss to create that deck and then finally hold it in my hand and also see my friends use it. For the brand to become popular was really a bonus.

Do you have any advice for people wanting to start their own?
Be passionate. Don’t do some parody. Have respect for the genre. Playing Cards are such an amazing medium that you should really love them and think about each step of the process and have fun. You know the old adage if it’s not fun why do it?

Any advice for brands that are out there right now?
No, I don’t. Everybody will just do their own thing and it will work or it won’t.

When it comes to archiving some of the history of cardistry you were one of the first with Dan and Dave. Looking back what did you think would become of this?
That’s an interesting question. Somebody at a local meetup said to me last week jokingly “You S.O.B. You started this Cardistry photography craze and now it’s all I see on Instagram!”. It was pretty funny. Dan & Dave were my friends. Dave was working at the Apple Store with me so trust me nobody was getting rich or even seeing that as a goal. We just had a lot of fun together. I was finishing up at USC Film School and wanted to experiment with photography and what better subject than your friends? They were always ready to go, and we worked tirelessly. I knew the Bucks were special. They had something very few people have and that’s creativity and obsession. But on the other hand, I always thought that with a talent as unique/marginal as theirs it would be hard to make mainstream money. So, in all honesty, I didn’t have a clue where Cardistry would go. Certainly, I never imagined a convention for it. The Bucks envisioned going into filmmaking as did I. So, in a way I guess we’re just failed filmmakers Hahahaha.

Did you ever tell yourself that this hobby could become your passion as it is today?
Honestly, I’m not sure I ever thought it through that far. I felt so lucky to be working with my friends and getting paid to create ideas.

With so many playing cards nice being printed with an air cushion finish as the standard, what made you stick to the cambric 37 and ivory 37 finishes for your recent cards?
I’m a big card stock fanatic. I really beat cards up doing shuffles all day long to really see how cards change and handle. It’s a big deal to me. We developed the crushed stock for the Guy Hollingworth project which was another obsession/passion project of mine. Guy loves the old Studs that have this really thin, pliable feeling. The Bucks love it too. So, we used that for some of the new Ace Releases and I insisted on an Ivory 37 for the metallic gold since it shows off that ink so well. There’s no embossing to take away from that glorious finish. The downside is that people now are used to the crushed stock after it took off, so an Ivory 37 is going to feel quite hard in comparison.

What deck would you go back and do touch ups on if you absolutely had to? What would be those touch up if there were any?
The metallic gold printing on Chinatown is not up to my standards. That was an era of custom printing that wasn’t as defined or accessible as it is today. We had to pioneer a lot of things back then. The proofs were very different and the metallic gold the USPCC uses today is so much better. The design and box of Chinatown are still great, but that metallic gold doesn’t pop enough so that’s my one past obsession.

Looking at the names of the colorways of the recent three Fulton Casino’s decks they seem to have the similarity of being named after movie-inspired things. Do movies ever inspire you for the colorway or do the colorways come first and then the name after?
Well, I love the Wizard of Oz. So back in 2014, I had bought the book to read to my kids and it made me revisit the movie. I thought how cool an “emerald city” and a “yellow brick road” deck set would be. So, in that case, the movie inspired my color choices. On the other hand, Pink is one of my favorite colors and I love John Hughes, the writer of Pretty in Pink so that name was just a chance to name something after an era I grew up in.

Looking at your sci-fi photography portfolio is something of a treat with what seems like Twilight Zone and David Lynch inspired aesthetic. Will we ever see any sci-fi decks from you that are like your photography?
I’ve been working on one since 2013. The mood board and archive of designs for it could fill a room. This is actually Dan Buck’s favorite project I’m working on and he’s been a champion of it since its inception. Hopefully, it’s just a year or so away. But that’s an aesthetic world I live in. Just my point of view is pretty obvious aesthetically from my cards and photography, and it hasn’t changed since I’ve been a small boy.

Has it already played a role in any previous decks you’ve created?
The way I see the world is probably quite skewed. I live in a black and white episode of Rod Sterling’s Twilight Zone. I’ve always had a quirky way of seeing things so I guess you can say that anything I make will be in that universe.

Looking at the iconic Fulton design philosophy of making sure the cards have a story to tell, how long does it take you to come up with a brand new deck idea?
Well, the ideas come easy. I have an entire folder of decks that are conceptually made but the process of getting that idea completely fleshed out and executed can break your back. Clip Joint, I had the idea and sketches in 2010. I had numerous artists lined up but, in my gut, I knew nobody could make it happen like Daniel Phillips (DLP). Together we have a real connection where our frame of reference is so similar that it’s a shorthand. I can say “like the gold door design on...” and he’ll say, “Dragon Inn on El Camino Real in Oceanside.” It’s bizarre. Dan turned me down for six months for Clip Joint because he had a fear failing since he’d never designed a card back. But I’m very persistent and he wasn’t getting off the hook. The rest is history. I think that deck took a year. Right now, I’m working on my new Halloween Themed Deck that’s fallen through three different artists and been conceptually finished since 2014. So, it’s frustrating but at the same time, I can’t release a FULTONS Deck and feel I really did it halfway. The most difficult deck DLP and I ever worked on was Ace FULTONS believe it or not. Simple designs are extremely difficult. As DLP says, “there’s nowhere to hide.” And our finished Ace Deck had a few changes made by Dan Buck that in hindsight, make the cards work. He’s really the master of looking at a card back and adding these touches that make it sing. Easiest deck ever was October with Steven Noble. That came together so fast. Steven is a genius. And I’m not sure when he sleeps because he’ll hit you with proofs in a few days and I can’t understand how he does it.

With some of your works being in, what I would say, different genres of art, which one of the decks was the hardest to put to press for you or come up with?
Ace Fulton by far. It’s the only deck where I thought it might never work. It went through 100 revisions and I could probably make a living off the “B Roll” alone. Some of the old designs for it in hindsight are amazing. DLP and I work so smoothly together but I think that deck took us to the edge of sanity, and a case of beer for DLP. But it was worth it. It stands the test of time.

Read the second part of the interview here! Brad talks about Art of Play, new Fulton's, industry trends and Keanu Reeves.  Stay tuned! 


This segment is written by Austin Perez (Instagram: @austin100s). No part of this article can be reproduced without written permission from the author and Kardify.com.

[post_ad]

WIN a Brick of Recently Released Decks from JP Games!

To celebrate 24k followers on Instagram (@kardify), we've partnered up with JP Games to give you a chance to WIN a mixed brick of recently released decks in our 'Tag to Win' contest. Decks included in the brick:

Red Soundboard
Snackers
Gamblers
Mint 2 Cucumber
Mint 2 Blueberry
Flux
Marbles
Provision
Sensu
Black flora
Flora
NY pizza

Head over to our Instagram account (@kardify) NOW to find out how.

[post_ad]

7 Questions with Derek Grimes of Paradigm Playing Cards

Designed by Derek Grimes and produced by Murphy's Magic, Paradigm Playing Cards is a unique deck crafted for both magicians and cardists in mind. A Paradigm is a standard, perspective, or set of ideas- a way of looking at something. Derek set out to do just that, and after a year in the making, Paradigm is a deck which you could begin by showing the slickest packet cut off, then right after do an Ambitious Card routine! With pretty standardized Pips and indices and standard reimagined Courts, this deck is sure to not raise any suspicion.

Prior to the release of the deck last week, we had a chat with Derek about his design background, inspiration, and design process behind the Paradigm Playing Cards.

For those of us who don’t know, can you tell us about yourself and what is your design background?
My name is Derek Grimes and I'm 35 years old. I currently run a YouTube channel called Disfunkshinal Reviews, where I review playing cards and magic releases. I’ve been doing that for a year and a half. I’ve been into magic since I was 11 years old when I went to see David Copperfield live on his “Forces Unseen” tour. As far as my design background, I am very artistic. Always drawing, tattooing, and more! I went to school for graphic art and design about ten years ago to become a freelance digital artist and ended up dropping out 6 months in, do too bad financial reasons.

Can you describe the Paradigm Playing Cards and why you’re passionate about it?
I started working on this deck a little over a year ago. A Paradigm is a standard, perspective, or set of ideas. A Paradigm is a way of looking at something. I wanted to design a deck that didn’t just look good, but is also mechanically visual and usable! I love this deck because its a crossover deck...a jack of all trades... the best of three worlds. The visual elements of the back design call for some out of mind packet cuts and visuals, whilst the duplicate card and standardized pips, indices, and courts make this a workers dream. Let's not forget about the 3 of hearts reveal! And of course its a perfect gift for that poker player in your life. I'm very passionate about this project as I am all of my endeavors for a few reasons. One because this is my first project and I want it to be more than successful! Also, I feel the Paradigm series can blow up to become the next big name like the Orbits and or Fontaines.

Walk us through the process you took to design this unique deck. How did you come out with the idea and how did you get to this finished product?
Since I'm not yet familiarized nor have Adobe Illustrator, I actually hand draw my back designs on blank face cards. It allows me to get a better feel of the actual design in hand right away. I started designing this deck a little over a year ago. A lot of times we see these decks that people put out for the cardistry world that are just either hideous thrown together shapes or designs and or just a deck a famous cardist or magician said is cool so everyone buys it! I wasn’t trying to be part of that crowd. I wanted to put out a deck that made sense in all aspects. Also, we see a lot of separation of categories. People saying decks are specifically for cardistry or saying a deck is only for magic. I wanted to merge the two. I started with the linework, Colors came next.

The original concept was only one set of circles in the center which was a yellow and white background. Seeing as I'm also right-handed but use opposite in holding a deck, I wanted to design a deck that looked great flourishing from any angle or hand. I was lucky to have Luke Wadey ask to look at my design to mess with and add some shadowing as well as other subtle changes such as aligning it to perfect grid format. Luke was also pivotal in helping with the tuck design. I wanted an infinite style tuck and he delivered in a huge way and exceeded my expectations. Daniel Schneider as busy as he was also working on a couple other decks, also was crucial in this deck. In my opinion, Daniel is the best when it comes to custom courts. He has proved it every time with his own decks, the Orbit series, and even most recent in the Daniel Madison release. I wanted to only have a handful of custom courts to ensure I kept the deck as standardized as possible. I also wanted to use standard courts but enlarge them a bit to show the details on each card. I did the same with the aces and enlarged all center pips rather than just the Ace of Spades. I tried to keep this deck as standard but different from anything you’ve seen prior.

How did you get feedback?
I got feedback about the deck from family, friends, Luke and Daniel. I can never say how grateful I am for having two of the best designers play a part in my deck! I might be wrong but I'm almost positive this is the first time 2 big name designers worked together on one deck. At first, I was very scared about it because I didn’t want to be overshadowed on my own deck or have people say or think I didn’t design this and it was all Luke and Daniel! But, after a while, I put my guards down. I also had great feedback from Mahdi Gilbert, Hocus Pocus, Daniel Madison, and a couple others. It's funny because looking back at the original concept of this deck I will say it was not the greatest. But the finished deck is something special.

What was your most brilliant breakthrough when designing the deck?
There were a few breakthroughs but the most brilliant and key part was the adding and enlarging of the center circles and the heavy shadowing to give the design depth.

What’s next? Can we expect more deck designs in the future?
I am working on a couple more designs as we speak. And I have already begun the second edition of the Paradigm deck. I'm hoping to take a page out of the Orbits book and finish with 12 editions of the Paradigm series. As of right now I'm working on getting this worker deck for magicians finished in which I'm going to be printing with Cartamundi on their new E7 stock once it becomes available after the exclusive they have with Ellusionist ends.

Finally, what are your favorite playing cards? 
I love standard bicycle decks of course and I have a bunch of sealed and opened blue seal decks from the ’80s and ’90s but my favorite playing cards I have to say are the Red Roses by Daniel Schneider. The black roses series have always been a favorite of mine due to the minimal look and they also resemble standard Rider backs. Red is my favorite color and its the first deck I was ever featured in as the Jack of hearts! I actually have over 100 sealed decks. They will always be my favorite. But my unicorn of decks is the Jerry's Nugget original deck! Never owned or touched one but I hope to one day trade or own one somehow. That's why I'm also excited for the Jerry's reprint by Expert Playing Cards.


Paradigm Playing Card is available NOW from your favorite Murphy's Magic Retailers.

[post_ad]