Kickstarter: 7 Questions with Dave Boyd of Wiretap Playing Cards

Inspired by the recent revelations of numerous wiretapping activities around the globe, designer Dave Boyd set out to create the Wiretap Playing Cards,  a deck focused on putting the power to spy back into the hands of civilians - the deck is always watching, waiting, and dissecting.

We managed to locate Dave through our various intel and interrogate have a chat with him about his design background, inspiration and evolution of Wiretap and his thoughts on Kickstarter.

Can you tell us about yourself and what is your design background?
I graduated from the University of the Arts in 2012 with a BFA in Illustration. My main concentrations of work at the time were in editorial and concept work, but I grew to love the community and intricacies of playing cards after my Sultana debut in 2013.

This is your first individual Kickstarter Project. Why Kickstarter?
The platform is an excellent place to share ideas with and meet other creative professionals, as well as get feedback from a large community of backers. I really enjoy the fact that a project can fail or succeed merely based on its merits (and advertising, haha) alone.

What is your inspiration behind Wiretap Playing Cards? How did you come up with the idea?
A lot of my close friends (and father) are working in the tech industry, and often when we would get together we would talk about the Snowden leaks and what the impact the NSA is having on the tech community. It is critical to realize, especially for people as young as I am, that the next step in our online evolution is setting boundaries and deciding what constitutes privacy. Cloud technology companies in the US have been hurt badly by the NSA leaks, because foreign investors no longer feel safe putting their data in the hands of people who are constantly being watched.

I wanted to make a deck of playing cards that would remind the user that they are being watched, as well as their intended targets. Having a deck of cards like this laying around allows folks to strike up a conversation when guests are over, and I firmly believe that talking about a problem is one of the best steps towards solving it.

How much time did you spend working on the deck and can you briefly go through the design evolution of one of your unique card design?
When this is all through, I will have worked on this particular deck for about 2.5-3 months. I did all of the work outside my part-time job and often worked 10-12 hour days (mostly in February when I was getting my butt in gear).

First, I gather reference for all of my drawings. Finding images of the Edward Snowden was difficult, because the only photo that really exists was that one taken from his interview. After collecting the pictures, I draw a thumbnail in pencil which I scan into photoshop and edit until it is rock solid. [Picture 1]

I print out a black and white copy, and then use a lightboard to transfer the image onto a paper of thicker stock (typically cold-press Arches, Strathmore, or just regular Bristol Board). [Picture 2] I scan the fully-rendered image back in, adjust the levels, clean up the dust, and then color the whole image in Photoshop. [Picture 3]

It sounds really long and tedious when I type it out, but that whole process probably takes about an hour on a good day.

I initially noticed Wiretap Playing Cards on the forums. What do you think of the playing card community?
The reason why I'm so drawn to the playing card community is because they demand high-quality products and are easy-going and friendly all at the same time. When I posted up the Wiretap deck on the forums, many people leaped to point out improvements that could be implemented, and the general feedback that I got was constructive. I hope to be a part of this community for a long time, and it hinges on the success of this first deck.

What are your thoughts about the continuous strong growth of playing card projects on Kickstarter?
I can't say that I'm surprised. Collectibles have always done well on Kickstarter since their launch, and cards are no different.

Finally, what are your favourite playing card decks?
Federal 52, the CMYK deck, and Grotesque (yeah that's right, I'm declaring it before I've even got it). There's also a standard red Bicycle deck that's been in my camping gear for as long as I can remember, and I have fond memories of it.

Thanks Dave and all the best! Love your art style! :)

Pledge starts from $11 for the standard edition. There are also multiple rewards that are waiting to be unlocked once the project hits its stretch goals. The most notable is the second deck, the Gag Order. This deck will feature partially-blindfolded pips, a dark colour scheme and will focus entirely on counterintelligence. Also the courts be fully custom and will be futuristic spies (a la Splinter Cell).

Check it out!

Analytics: Kickstarter February 2014

With the increased interest in crowd-funded playing card projects particularly on Kickstarter, we are publishing a monthly tracking report as part of our popular Analytics series. The goal is to give an analytical insight into the month-on-month performance of projects and how these numbers are tracking cumulatively year-to-date.

February numbers continue to build on the momentum of January with the number of funded projects doubling that of last month. Numbers continue to surpass those from the same time last year. The chart below describes how this year is tracking against the numbers from 2013 as benchmark.

Playing Card Projects 

Month-on-month, February is a good month for successful project- doubled that of January!

Here is what the month looked like in numbers:

Projects launched in February are equally spread through out the month.

Meanwhile, a here is how projects performed over the month. There was an increase in % of successful projects this month. Most interesting is the shift of unsuccessful projects towards cancelled projects. Cancelled projects are up 4% and unsuccessful projects are down 7%.

Funding

A total of $673k was raised by all projects in February. This is 9% lower than the prior month.

It was a slow start for the Origins playing cards ($58k) but it gained momentum towards the end of the funding period and managed to finish above the $50k mark.

Here is a look at the top 5 most funded playing cards:

The top 5 successful playing cards projects for the month contributed 43% to the overall funding of successful projects! It would seem that the funds have been more spread out this month.

The average funding goal of successful project this month is $11.4k, that is 38% lower than the previous month. This is expected and we maintained that the average funding goal stabilise around the $15k mark, where the current YTD average is.

Backers 

Approximately 25.5k backers were recorded across all projects in February. This is 49% above last month!

The average pledge per backer decreased to $41.37 this month with 55% falling in the $25-$50 average (2-3 decks pledge).

The following is a month-on-month comparison for 2014 with the 2013 curve used as benchmark.

Top 5 funded Projects by backer numbers below:

Launched Projects 

Here are the top 10 most funded projects launched in February:

The White Ornates and the Grotesque deck lead the pack by a huge margin! Not surprising considering the proven track record and huge following of the Randy Butterfield and Lotrek for their respective projects.

As expected,  momentum continue to build from last month and with 18 projects funded and 26 projects launched in February, it is looking like a busy one!


Data provider:

News: Kardify Site Announcement!

My goal for kardify has always been to create an inspiring place for collectors, creators, aspiring designers, my readers and also myself. Over the past 12 months, I have been putting more and more effort and energy into this space, as much as I possibly can. But when I get busy with my personal life, it is challenging and it gets really hard.

I always want to have great and exclusive content for you guys, so because of this, I have decided to introduce a new staff writer and add some awesome new features on kardify!

+ Introducing our new staff writer and partner

Collecting playing cards is my passion and I would like to share this with you guys as well. Hence our new writer/partner is not only creative but full of positivity and fresh perspective. Without a further ado, I am thrilled to and would like to introduce Anthony Ingrassia (Sparkz) as our new staff writer! Anthony is a well respected member of the playing card community and I am honoured to have him here on kardify. You can see more of Anthony's collection and work on Sparkz Collector.

Anthony will be writing a new monthly column called 1-on-1, featuring your favourite artists and designers in a bibliographical piece. This will be an excellent compliment to all my regular posts on Kickstarter projects and that means you will get even more content starting this month!

+ kardify Headlines

With the tremendous growth of the playing card industry in the last few months, I had a hard time keeping up with all the news and development around new releases, projects, artists, designers, retailers, discounts, sales... whew!

Now you can read all the latest news and up-to-date information from kardify Headlines. This is a curated list of latest news straight from the source via Facebook, twitter and Instagram streams. Updated daily and never miss a thing.

+ kardify Deck View

Deck View is a popular weekend feature on kardify that displays a deck of playing cards in a simple layout. The joker, tuck, back, pips, ace of spades and court cards are clearly visible at a glance in near HD quality. We open those rare and hard to find decks for you so that you don't have to.

This feature will be maintained by myself and contributed by our awesome Deck View guru @Charlie_L1f3. Check out his Instagram to see more of his awesome collection!


There's is one more huge announcement that I will do later. Stay tuned! ;)

Kickstarter: 7 Questions with Nat Iwata of Steampunk Cthulhu Resurrection Playing Cards

The Steampunk Cthulhu Resurrection Playing Cards is a revised version of the popular original Steampunk Cthulhu deck released last year. Produced by Nat Iwata, this Steampunk Cthulhu themed deck has been revamped, retouched, and resurrected!

This revised deck features artwork based on a Steampunk rendition of The Call of Cthulhu. The backs are beautifully designed and the unique court cards are illustrated with scenes and characters from the story. Also, fans of the original will be happy to know that many improvements have been made: thin borders on card back, new background art on card fronts, new tuck box and new custom seal.

Nat was nice enough to have a chat with us about his design background, inspiration behind the Steampunk Cthulhu Resurrection deck, his thoughts on the growth of crowd-funded playing card projects and lessons from his previous successful Kickstarter projects.

Can you tell us about yourself and what is your design background?
My background is in the video game industry, which I still work in as a freelance artist and art director. I went to school for film, and then later got a degree from Animation Mentor for character animation, but ultimately decided I wanted to make art as more of a jack of all trades. I've worked on teams and also as the sole artist on mobile games where I'm doing everything from concept art to rigging and animation to UI design.

About 2 years ago the studio I was working for was having some issues so I decided to set out as a full time freelancers, which was when I launched my first Kickstarter for The Steampunk Alphabet, a children's book I wrote and illustrated. The result was an overfunded project and a publishing deal from a small book publisher in California, so more than I bargained for!

After seeing a few card projects on Kickstarter I came to the realization that playing cards offered the perfect vehicle for me to put my illustration skills to work and make a cool product that, luckily, people seem to really like.

What is your inspiration behind the Steampunk Cthulhu Resurrection Playing Cards? Why another Cthulhu themed deck?
A year ago this month, I launched a campaign for my first card deck, the original Steampunk Cthulhu Bicycle deck. I'd already established a steampunk audience with my book, and Cthulhu seemed to be a great tie in. The alphabet book was a kind of mashup, so this just so Steampunk Cthulhu just seemed like a great pairing.

Since then, I've totally sold out. I've done 2 more decks between then and now and have learned a lot, and often thought of some changes I'd make to that first deck. The Steampunk Cthulhu Resurrection campaign is about getting revamping the design, and reintroducing the deck in a new light, hopefully to some new folks as well. I've also decided to go with Expert Playing Card Company, maker of the Exquisite deck, which will allow me more flexibility with the size of my print runs without sacrificing quality.

How much time did you spend working on the deck?
It's hard to say, as I work on a deck for several months, but not full-time. The design work, running the campaign, and fulfilment easily adds up to a couple hundred hours of work.

Can you briefly go through the design evolution of one of your unique card design?
Well it does depend on the card really. Some of the court cards are actually portraits of backers. With those, I get several photos of the person and chose the one I think will best suit the card. I then look at a lot of reference for clothing and sketch out a preliminary outfit for them. Next I do a line drawing of the card and get their approval, as I want them to be happy with their immortalized card self. Next is adding color and shading and putting on finishing touches.

If it's not a portrait card, I generally get an idea of what I want in mind, and just go through the same process of sketching, line drawing, then rendering it out.

What are your thoughts about the continuous strong growth of playing card projects on Kickstarter? 
I think it's good and bad. In some ways I wonder if it's not a bubble waiting to burst, or if people are going to get burned out and broke on card decks. On the other hand, just as the card creator community is growing so is the number of card enthusiasts. There seems to be no shortage of demand for more decks, which is good news for me and other creators.

You've got a few creators that make insane amounts of money, not necessarily insane amount of profits mind you, and the more moderately successful guys like me, and then of course the ones that barely scrape by or are unsuccessful altogether. I think it's becoming harder for creators coming in late to the game that haven't established a place in the community to stand out in the mix.

You have previously launched 5 projects (5 successful) on Kickstarter. Are there any takeaway lessons from your previous projects you would like to share?
There have a been a ton of lessons along the way, many of which I've tried to pass on to other Kickstarter creators this past year. Here are a few that come to mind:

- Kickstarter is a community, be an active part of it. Talk to other creators, collaborate, offer help, and get involved with backers. If you're simply asking others to support you without doing the same in return, you won't do as well as you could.

- Be honest, be fair and communicate. Though I've had a few unpleasant conversations with backers, I've always found the best results by just being upfront with people, kind and respectful.

- I'll move on after this one, but there are so many variables to account for, planning makes all the difference. Make a budget, map out your campaign, know what you need to compensate for your materials and time and don't be so desperate to succeed that you end up in the red.

That is some really good advice! Finally, what are your favourite playing card decks? 
That's too hard of a question to answer, there are so many amazing decks out there!

Thank you for your time, Nat and good to see you back on Kickstarter! :)


The Steampunk Cthulhu Resurrection deck will be printed by the Expert Playing Card Company, the printer of The Exquisite Deck. Pledge starts from $10 and there are multiple add-ons available such as custom coin and uncut sheets.