Indiegogo: 7 Questions with the New Deck Order of the Cardistry of South East Asia Project

Cardistry is a breathtaking performing art form. The manipulation of playing cards with intent to display creativity and skill have captivated many for the past few years. You’ve probably seen a snippet of cardistry – a card flourish on youtube or even teaser for new playing cards.

Cardists (or “card artists”) are gradually becoming more and more advanced in their technique. Jaspas Deck is one of the masters who is constantly pushing the boundaries of this art. Recently announced as the finalist of the World Kardistry Championship, Jaspas and the New Deck Order have created the Cardistry of South East Asia DVD project on Indiegogo to share their passion for the art.

This project involves 10 Cardists across 5 different countries- the largest Cardistry project to-date! This project will be the precedent for further documentaries of Cardistry scenes around the world by New Deck Order. We had a quick chat with Loretta of the New Deck Order on the Cardistry of South East Asia (SEA) project, using Indiegogo, inspiration behind the SEA deck and the community support.

Can you tell us about New Deck Order and how did you guys come about? 
The New Deck Order was formed with the idea of bringing Cardists around the world together. The Cardistry community has always been small, but we are scattered all over the world and therefore it's hard for everyone to know each other personally. We hope to be able to make this community a tighter and more close-knit one.

Can you describe the Cardisty of South East Asia Project and why you’re passionate about it?
This project involves many Cardists from all over the region and is by far the biggest Cardistry project to be done. Considering our physical proximity from all the big names in Cardistry, this part of the world doesn't receive a lot of attention. There are so many Cardists here who deserve more exposure and we want to give them this opportunity to showcase to the world what Southeast Asia has to offer.




When did you first start thinking about using indiegogo for the project? What made you decide to take the plunge?
As there are lots of costs involved for this project, such as travel and accommodation to all the various countries and production costs for the cards, we just didn't have enough at the time to get it started. We also wanted more people to play a part in making this happen. As we're located in Singapore, we're not able to use Kickstarter. We chose flexible funding because we were going to go ahead with the project even if we were not fully funded.

There are a lot of interest in the SEA Deck. How did you come up with the idea and how much time did you spend working on the deck?
We wanted to make something different from regular cards, something simple but able to change the looks of moves. We decided on replacing the court cards with pips, which will provide a consistent look in displays, fans, etc. The conceptualization of the design took about a month, and the designing itself took about another month.

What is your favourite Perk in the project and why? 
The CoSEA Ultimate Package! It includes all the products that we've come up with for the project - the DVD, lecture notes, and playing cards. It is indeed the ultimate package for people who want to invest in this project!

After more than 20 days, the project is still not funded. What do you think of the support given by the cardistry community so far? Would you do anything different? 
It's understandable that the response by the community for this project is way less unenthusiastic as if it had been purely a deck of cards. We recognize that there are lots of people who would want the cards without having to buy a DVD along with it, but the primary focus of the project is the DVD and we wanted people to see it as such, and not a playing card project. If we had to change something about the project, it would be to give more time to market it to the community. We came up with this idea late last year and have to make the tour this summer when all the Cardists are available, or wait till next summer to do it. We only had a short time frame to churn everything out.

Finally, what are your favourite playing card decks?
Our favourite playing card decks include old Studs, Aviators and Tally-Hos The DVD itself features moves from 8 Southeast Asian Cardists.

Thanks guys and all the best!

Don't miss out! This is a rare chance to know these cardistry masters who are constantly pushing the boundaries of this art, and gain insights from the creative minds of the hundreds of practitioners in the region. Also, Jaspas Deck will also be giving lectures in Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh City, Bangkok, Kuala Lumpur, Jakarta and Manila.

Pledge now to get the physical copy of the DVD. It includes an insert full of photography, comments and notes from the tour. The highly sought-after SEA deck is available at a higher perk.

Deck View: Deco Silver Playing Cards

Simple. Elegant. Bold.

Created by Paul Carpenter, Deco is the third deck from Encarded. Deco features elegant, hand-crafted details printed on Bee casino stock and housed in a beautiful foil and embossed tuck box.

Deco is designed and sold as a matched pair, 1 Silver and 1 Bronze deck and only 2,500 pairs will be printed by the US Playing Card Company. Deco Silver is the lighter deck of the set. The metallic silver, rich blue and white tones add shimmer and depth.

Available at JP Games. Use the code KARDIFY10 during check-out to get 10% off for orders over £50.

Analytics: Kickstarter March 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.

The number of funded projects slipped 17% in March as playing card backers turned cautions ahead of a few high profile launch, the Hive deck, Zenith, LUXX, Hot Cakes and Whispering Imps v2. However, the year-to-date 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 

The number of unsuccessful projects rose 22% this month. We see this as a persistent trend for the next month or two as competition increase and hence more choices for backers.

Here is what the month looked like in numbers:

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

Meanwhile, a here is how projects performed over the month. The % of successful projects this month decreased 6% and as noted, an increase in the % of unsuccessful projects.

Funding

A total of $788k was raised by all projects in March. This is 17% higher than the prior month.

The White Ornate ($118k) designed by Randy Butterfield was the most funded this month. The unlocking of the stunning Black Obsidian deck stretched goal pushed the final funding over the $100k mark.

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

The top 5 successful playing cards projects for the month contributed 76% to the overall funding of successful projects!

Similar to last month, the average funding goal of successful project is $11.3k. This reduced the YTD average to $13.1k. We maintained that the average funding goal stabilize around the $15k mark.

Backers 

Approximately 18.1k backers were recorded across all projects in March. The average pledge per backer increased to $51 this month.

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 March:

As expected, Kings Wild's the Independence deck lead the chart by a huge margin. The project reached its $60k funding goal in just 10 hours. Also, the average spent per backer for the Independence is $84.8. Amazing!

The momentum seem to have stabilize this month and we expect the numbers to be consistent next month as well before things pick up during summer.


Data provider:

Revealed: 7 Questions with Amil of the White Deck

I am not a big fan of minimalist decks and there have been quite a number of them on Kickstarter already. Most of them attempt to give the traditional playing cards a modern spin. However, reinventing the wheel resulted in the loss of practical  functionality of the playing card deck. Unlike those decks, the White Deck stands out with its two-way back design, easily recognizable court cards and most importantly, readable indices.

Originally scheduled to be launch on April 1st, creator Amil and his team decided to postponed the project to a later date as backers might not take this project seriously. We had a chat to Amil about his design background, the inspiration and design evolution of the White Deck and his thoughts on minimalism.

Can you tell us about yourself and what is your design background? 
We are a group of 4 graphic designers, obsessed with minimalistic style. We're all well known in our field but this is our first time working together and we decided to introduce ourselves as a team were each one is a part of the whole. We worked on the concept, then the design had to follow the guidelines of this concept.

This is your first Kickstarter Project. Why Kickstarter?
Crowd funding is an effective way to source funding for a new product and we want to be part of that because it allows cardists, magicians and collectors to help make the White Deck a reality. Also, this platform allows us to interact with customers directly and receive feedback.

What is your inspiration behind The White Deck Project? How did you come up with the idea?
While designing The White Deck, the minimalist design was an imperative element for us. Beautiful designed are either intricate or simple and we just love the latter. We worked on the motto ”less is more”.

When creating The White Deck, we didn’t just want to offer a color variant to an existing standard playing card deck. We wanted to do something different. We were curious to see how the deck would look with a minimalist design, and when design was completed, we were blown away! We simply had to get these out there.

How much time did you spend working on the deck design?
Well, it is not about time spent, it's about the concept and work finished. We assure you that you will be pleased with the finish and the quality of the deck. We’ve spent a lot of time testing several different layout concept to create our perfect deck of playing cards.

Can you briefly go through the design evolution of one of your unique card design?
The Japanese flag and the Japanese minimalism was the starting point. A red round on a white background: the Sun. That´s it and that is enough. Basic geometry and single color. We worked on the colors as well. We wanted to keep readability for the index and keep somehow the standard courts in a soft-plain non-invasive way (visually speaking). We wanted to have only red and black on white. The light gray is still black ink at 10%. We wanted to have a ”bright” white minimalistic deck, with the feeling of fading out.

What are your thoughts about the playing card community’s comments about minimalism? Is it a trend or just lazy?
Minimalism is a movement. Our designs are not only simple, but immersive and dynamic. Minimalism is simplicity. Simplicity is hard to achieve.

Finally, what are your favourite playing card decks? 
We love rare limited edition decks. They are oh so hard to get and as a collector, We just need to have them all! Can you imagine, some decks were stored in the warehouse and was forgotten until recently… these are limited edition print runs just for the artists’ personal use. It is not often an artist graciously share these decks with us.

Thanks for your time Amil, and all the best!


No launch date has been given for the White Deck project, but Amil said it will be "in a week or two". Also, the White Deck will be printed by the EPCC.