Kickstarter: Max of the Metal Deck

This week, we have a guest post from Max of maxplayingcards.com in conjunction with the launch of the Metal Rider Back Playing Cards earlier this week. This deck has been well received and the project hit its funding goal within the first 48 hours! Amazing!

Hi, my name is Max and I am basically a collector. I began collecting playing cards many years ago, mainly Spanish decks (there is an old playing cards tradition here). I was then attracted by the card magic so I began practicing. After some magic courses I demonstrated to be incompetent as a magician, but I felt in love with that rider back design. My fingers are short and clumsy and I had many difficulties to practice every day, so, as I couldn’t properly advance in my magical skill, I decided to go beyond with the Bicycle playing cards collecting.

The Story

The story about the Metal deck is a bit long but juicy. Are you ready to hear it?

Some years ago I began making some dummy designs of different playing cards on napkins and used papers. I am not a great designer, I mean, a talented draftsman, so I just experimented with basic shapes, but in my dreams I used to think of creating my own Bicycle deck. I made a couple of designs I finally printed in a China based company dedicated to print anything on anywhere. The quality (specially the centering) was awful but I enjoyed a lot seeing those decks. But I needed to make a Bicycle deck.

I was always playing with textures in my Photoshop experiments and suddenly I had the idea of the Texture series. I was able to mix my retouching techniques with the rider back deck. So, I spent almost one year (mainly at nights) designing two different decks: Steel and Wood. Fortunately, I found Randy Butterfield. In that moment, he begun to create playing cards and I always thought he would arrive really far with that, and I was right. Randy saw the potential of my design and gave me fantastic tips to improve it. He is a master in the digital design and his style is something I have always envied, because he is not only technically impeccable but also hugely talented guy (and a fantastic person, by the way). When the Steel deck was almost completed, I needed to know if it could be a real deck and contacted to USPCC in order to check if they would approve my design, specially the metal rider back (they had, and have, a strict policy about any change of the original Rider back). I was exultant when Anamika, from USPCC, told me my design was approved. I wasn’t able to afford the production but I knew I was in the right direction.

Then, I decided to send it to some companies (relevant in that moment) such as Circle City Card or Encarded, in order to catch their interest in my job to be published, but the feedback wasn’t too enthusiastic as both Paul Carpenter and Russel Kercheval stated my work was too immature. I even sent it to HOPC but I never got their answer. I got depressed about that and stored the designs in the deepest place of my computer. I filled my frustration creating and feeding Max Playing Cards website. I needed to learn and to spread about design and cards and I tried to be everywhere a new designer or a new deck appeared.

The Blog

Working on Max Playing Cards has been fantastic. It is not easy to handle a website trying to make happy everyone, including myself. I am quite perfectionist in everything I do and I wanted Max Playing Cards to be something different, not only cards, but also heart and soul. I put my heart in every word I write and unfortunately I don’t have anyone to help me on this so writing in two languages and trying to be in the loop regarding playing cards is not easy, specially combined with a full time job and two nice girls at home (my wife and daughter) that want to be with me. The night is my partner and the lack of sleep my daily companion. But the best reward I have got during all this time has been to know such a great group of people with dreams like mine that see them become true. I am proud to keep a fantastic relationship with (almost) all and I can call many of them as “my friend”. One of them, Lotrek, has also been really helpful in all this process. Even being terrible busy he has found time for me and he even designed for me the new Max Playing Cards logo.

The Metal Deck

One day, Cardicians launched the Bicycle Steel deck, and I felt terribly bad. Someone had decided to make a deck made of steel and give it the same name I had used. I thought everything was lost about my idea but fortunately, the design had nothing to do with mine and at the same time encouraged me to retake my deck and improve it.

I changed the name into Metal deck, something more general that in my opinion fits better in the Texture series idea. One day, I showed the designs to Mike Guistolise, from Collectable Playing Cards, and he showed so enthusiastic about it that I simply agreed with him to be produced by CPC. It was a real gentlemen’s agreement. I have been really comfortable working with Mike till now because even having so many companies, websites and things to control, he is always online to solve things.

From that moment, and during last 6 months, I have just worked on every little detail. I have had to redesign several parts of the cards and I have to admit that working with the USPCC is sometimes quite frustrating. It was especially hard the embossing/debossing design of the deck. I made it more than five times and I have to say that I still have no a real impression of how it will look at the end.

Kickstarter

Almost three years after, the deck is already available through Kickstarter and I am really excited about it.

I am not quite sure about Kickstarter future. It is true the interest on playing cards has grown exponentially along last years and backers have become much more demanding and selective. That’s the reason for that many projects that would have been widely funded in the past, are even unable to get the basic funding goal. The is some kind of cycle on this (I imagine it happens in all the collecting world) but it is true that crowdfunding has given backers a fantastic opportunity to be involved in the creation process and they (we) have learnt a lot about it just following the projects along last years.

Nevertheless, being a collector outside the USA has become an impossible mission. The growing rates of the postal service, the prices of decks and the customs taxes difficult a lot being a serious collector. Furthermore, this last fashion of making ultra-limited decks based on a seal or on a slight change with a terrible rise of the price is also damaging the serious collector that is not able to be updated about everything. When I see a project with just one deck or at most two different colors, I feel happy because I think about all the money I am saving… but suddenly, a new update reveals a new version, variation or edition… And that kills me :)

Collection

For some reasons, and perhaps you will consider it stupid, I like people and not decks. Think that I belong to that group of masochists that collect sealed decks, so I don’t have always a real opportunity to enjoy my cards. I am not sure which is the passion that comes before, but when I feel something special about a creator, I simply love his, her or their designs. That happens to me with several of them like Lotrek, Randy Butterfield, Linnea and Peter from Uusi, Nat Iwata, Lee McKenzie, and many others (sorry, I can’t write them all but I have already tell them this in person)… I feel a special attraction to their work because they transmit me good vibes… There are other works that are widely considered as fantastic, that even get thousands of dollars in their projects, but don’t make me feel anything special (although I desire to have them as I am a serious collector).


This exclusive guest post is written by Max of maxplayingcards.com for Kardify. No part of this article can be reproduced without written permission from the author. You can support the Metal Rider Back Playing Cards here on Kickstarter!

Kickstarter: 7 Questions with Daniel Kroemer of 1910 Brew House Playing Cards

Designed by Daniel Kroemer, the 1910 Brew House Playing Cards are a beer themed deck of cards inspired by vintage beer trays and advertisements from around the world.

These unique deck features meticulously illustrated custom aces, courts & jokers, a classic American style tuck with embossing, matte finish & printed interior with a custom retro numbered seal for each deck.

Between his busy schedule, we were able to catch-up with Daniel for a quick Q&A on his design background, the inspiration & design evolution behind the 1910 Brew House deck and his thoughts on Kickstarter.

Can you tell us about yourself and what is your design background?
My name is Daniel Kroemer, but it's pronounced "Kramer." I was born in Massachusetts and raised in Dacula, Georgia. Finding a passion in design came during my senior year of high school when I was really just looking for something to get me out of the standard core classes. There's a place called Maxwell High School of Technology in the county I lived in, and you could opt to take a class there for half the day to learn a specific trade, and only attend your regular school for three periods. I did this my junior year to take automotive because I thought that, without a doubt, I wanted to be an automotive technician. I quickly realized that wasn't the case and really didn't like it too much. My senior year I knew I wanted to go to Maxwell again, I just didn't know what to take, so I picked a graphic communications class because playing on the computer for two and a half hours every day and learning to airbrush sounded pretty cool. I ended up becoming obsessed with that class and graphic design as a whole. I would stay hours after school and then get back on the computer again at home to keep working. I actually quit the baseball team so I could focus even more on it after I realized I had found my true passion. It was definitely a crazy awesome and exciting time for me looking back and I wish I could find it all over again.

So towards the end of the school year I began looking for internships I could do over the summer. I ended up landing one at an awesome design firm in Buford, GA called The Design Pub, also known as Veugeler Design Group. They have a theme of an old brew pub with a pool table, massive old beer bottle collection, a full bar, beer advertising and flags everywhere, etc. It's also located in an old factory building which fits perfectly with the theme. I interned there for a few weeks, then became a part time designer while I began taking college classes. It felt really unnecessary taking the college core classes knowing they wouldn't get me any closer to where I wanted to be in the design world. That feeling led me to taking a full time job as a graphic artist at The Design Pub and quitting school after the first semester.

I worked at The Design Pub for around two years and then felt the need to find something new. A company called EvoShield in Athens, GA needed a new designer and they really caught my eye. EvoShield is a sports protection and apparel company that just started blowing up recently and is named the Official Protective Gear Supplier for Major League Baseball. Having always played sports I could really relate to this company and ended up landing the job as a full time designer, where I stayed a little over two years and learned an immense amount. I designed everything from t-shirt designs to team logos to magazine advertisements to web materials - pretty much anything a sporting company could need design-wise.

That brings me to now. I quit my job at EvoShield, not because I didn't enjoy it but because I felt I needed to be out on my own for a while to really focus on jobs I felt passionate about. I knew I eventually wanted to work for myself, and figured now is a better time than ever to go after that dream. If things don't work out I can always find a full time position somewhere, but I had to take the chance while I'm not married and my responsibilities are basically limited to myself and myself only. One of the projects I've been wanting to do for a while now is design my own deck of playing cards, and I knew I wanted to make them beer-themed. The results of this project will show me if I can handle taking on these passion projects, or if I need to stick to client work or a full-time design job - so it's a pretty big deal to me and I'm really hoping all goes well.

This is your first Kickstarter project. What motivated you to create your own deck of cards?
I guess I already somewhat answered that in the first response, but there are really two reasons. One of them being that I love playing cards in general, from the old vintage decks to the newly designed decks on Kickstarter. I love artwork of all kinds and playing cards are a cheap and easy way to get inside a designer's mind. I want my artwork to be out there among all of the other cards in the world and knowing someone might be playing Poker with my artwork is pretty cool.

The second is that I'm on a mission right now to figure out what path I'll be taking in design. In a perfect world I could focus on passion projects and sell them while doing minimal client work on the side. If that ends up not being the case, I may look for a full-time design job at a company or just focus on only client work, which isn't really what I want to be doing. I find it's much easier to pour your heart into a personal project than to pour it into someone else's dream, as I'm sure any designer can attest to. On top of those reasons, my dad is a deck collector and ever since I've mentioned doing my own deck, he's been on me about getting it out - so that's been some extra motivation.

What is your inspiration behind the 1910 Brew House deck? How did you come up with the idea?
I've always loved beer advertising. Fuel was added to that fire even more when I began working at The Design Pub. I've collected old beer memorabilia for quite some time now, along with signs and brewery glassware. A little fun fact about myself is that I have a collection of over 1,000 different glasses from all over the world, all because I love the artwork involved with each of them. I noticed a lack of any classy beer related playing card deck on the market so it seemed like an opportunity to create my own. The characters on the courts are based off of pre-prohibition beer trays and advertisements.

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?
For the Ace of Spades I really just wanted to have something purely Americana and beer themed at the same time. I know it may seem somewhat overdone to have an eagle as the AoS (or maybe that's just in my head) but I thought it was perfect to have the eagle holding onto wheat and hops in front of the barrels. I have no idea about the time spent. It's been somewhat of an on and off job while I work through some other projects, so I haven't been keeping up with hours.

What was your most brilliant breakthrough when designing the deck?
 I would say the biggest breakthrough, as with most projects, was telling myself to stop thinking so hard and trying to make everything perfect and just do what feels right. When you're designing a project purely out of passion and not for the monetary value, it's easy to over think every little thing and to keep changing things over and over. Eventually you just have to go with the flow and stop looking back.

What are your thoughts about the continuous strong growth of playing card projects on Kickstarter?
Being a newbie playing card designer, I don't have too much of an opinion on the matter, but I would say there are positives and negatives, as with anything. I think there are a multitude of decks that shouldn't ever reach the public's eye and just crowd the scene. As long as a deck is well thought out and is artistically sound I would love more custom decks to be available. It seems there are a lot of younger people who love cards but aren't designers or artists, and they want to get a deck out because it's a cool thing to do. That's great and all but unfortunately the decks just have too many issues and don't have the form that decks need to follow. It's one thing to be creative and do something new, but the decks should still be easily readable and playable. All just my opinion of course. Overall I love seeing new decks emerge and to see what ideas designers are coming up with.

Finally, what are your favourite playing card decks?
From a classy standpoint, I love pretty much everything that Theory 11 puts out. The decks are so beautiful and clean. One of my favorite tuck boxes is from The Boardwalk Papers, but that's mainly just because I love the work of Drew Melton who did the artwork. Jackson Robinson's decks are always amazing but I think that's a given for any card enthusiast. As far as vintage goes, I really love the old pin up girl decks simply for the artwork, but I collect those vicariously through my dad so I don't spend the cash on them.

Thank you for your time Daniel and all the best! 


Pledge starts from $12 and the 1910 Brew House Playing Cards will be printed by the USPCC on their famous Bicycle stock. There are also multiple rewards that are waiting to be unlocked once the project hits its stretch goals. The most notable is the RED Brew House deck at $50k! Add-ons such as coasters, wooden coins and uncut sheets are available.

Kickstarter: 7 Questions with Ben Kolozsi of Choice Playing Cards

Beautifully illustrated by Ben Kolozsi, Choice playing cards are a contemporary deck inspired by the history and hand drawn playing cards of the past. This deck has been designed with simplicity in mind. The Ace of Spades and courts are custom and meticulously hand illustrated while the minimalistic back design enhances displays and card flourishes, which have already proven to be quite popular amongst cardists.

We reached out to Ben and we had a chat about his design background, the inspiration behind Choice playing cards, the design evolution of the deck and Kickstarter.

Can you tell us about yourself and what is your design background?
I always like art but really starting loving it when I was around 13-14 years old. In high school I had an amazing teacher that pushed me and would enter me in competitions which I ended up winning several times. That really gave me the push needed to purse art as a carrier. I started attending Savannah College of Art in Design in 2004 and soon found Illustration was perfect for me. My minor was to be Interactive Design and Game Development and it ended up turning into a second major which kept me at SCAD until 2011. I graduated both fields with high marks as well as a few more competition wins under my belt.

What is your inspiration behind the Choice Playing Cards? How did you come up with the idea?
While working in restaurants in Savannah, I found a local design and film firm that agreed to give me an internship and hopefully a job. After about two weeks they asked me for a year unpaid internship. I laughed and walked out. Kinda in a rough spot and slightly bored I rediscovers magic from when I was a kid, and it had changed. I found many custom decks and soon my brain began to dream and dream big. At first I though I would be the next big Cardist but soon realized while I love it, I am no pro. So I stuck to what I am good at and that is how Choice was born.

Unfortunately, your first project was only 48% funded. Did you get any help or feedback from your supporters after your first project and how did you incorporate it into the current project?
Yes I did! Many friends and I talked about what I did right, as well as wrong. It really gave me a lot of insight into what the other side of the counter felt like. For my first campaign I launched without all the artwork complete as well as shown. I also had all the bells and whistles attached and no stretch goals. Another thing, I was trying to do everything and was dragging with the weight. This time I contact a team of people as well as research fulfillment centers. I came up with the best balanced campaign I could create. It now has a lower goal because of some solid stretch goals. The artwork is 100% complete and Expert card company has already received and reviewed the files. We are good to go!

Can you briefly go through the design evolution of one of your unique card design?
Yeah of course I would love to explain how I create a court card. I start in a pencil and sketch book. I do anywhere from 3 to 20 sketches of how I want the royal to general look. Usually takes me around a week per card. After I have a design I like, I begin with the dead center of the card and careful draw towards the crown.

As I go I am also measure the proportions in order to keep all the royals consecutive. I have to be very aware of how the design is going to intersect, that's the hardest part and most time consuming. Laying out a single card in the final design like this takes anywhere from several days to a week. I will then resize and blow the image up and transfer it to a large piece of watercolor paper. Using copics pens, sharpies and the classic pen and nib I slowly ink all of my precious line work. I only work about 20 min at a time in order to keep my hand accurate and steady. As long as I am pacing myself this takes a couple days.

From here I scan the final ink into the computer and begin to duplicate and mirror each card using photoshop. You must be careful during this party to remember how you pre planned each card. Once that is complete I have to take it into illustrator and using multiple tools and techniques turn the raster image into a vector for print.

Boom, done!

From the project page, what are a few of your favorite reward levels and why? 
Easily the Ryan Edwards handcrafted card clip, Jamie Grant's AIP bottles and of course the DVD. Having a team of amazing people behind me is part of why, but their work is also incredible. Really excited to get these in hand myself!

What are your thoughts about the continuous strong growth of playing card projects on Kickstarter?
It's incredible! As an artist it is awesome to see the support and passion many people have. I am proud myself to join in on both sides, including supporting others work.

Finally, what are your favourite playing card decks? 
I have way to many favorites and all for different reasons, be it slights, cardistry or the artwork. On my coffee table now is the red Choice deck, blue Ohio studs, yellow Noc v3, Hollingworth, D&D vintage plaid, launch Virts, Edo Huang's Nautical deck and a Portals wine deck. I'm honestly to scared to use the Hollingworth, but holy cow it's epic!

Thank you for your time and all the best, Ben. If you like what you’ve read here and want to support the Choice playing cards, you can find it on Kickstarter here. 

Choice Playing Cards will be printed EPCC with the same stock and finish as the popular NOC v3's. Pledge starts from $9 and there are multiple add-ons available such as the cardistry tutorial DVD featuring eight flourishes by the Choice Team, Jamie D. Grant's "Anything is Possible" bottle and Ryan Edward's hand-crafted card clips.

News: Collectable Playing Cards 1000 Deck Club

Family owned and operated Collectable Playing Cards has been around for quite some time. The online retailer carries everything from Magic to Playing Cards and accessories.

CPC (Collectable Playing Cards) has also developed a very strong Custom Playing Card following, producing decks ranging from fun and unique to elegant. With a very successful run of Kickstarter projects, CPC is now bringing a new exclusive to the playing card community...The 1000 Deck Club.

The 1000 Deck Club will feature ONLY decks produced in limited runs of approx. 1000 decks, the inaugural release is the Crystallum Deck, a custom deck developed by CPC in house and depicts a crystal design concept.

The 1000 Deck Club is estimating 6-8 projects per year exclusively for the club and will have a limited purchase quantity of only 6 decks of any one given release per member. These exclusive decks will only be available to CPC Club Members.

CPC Club Memberships start at $14.95 per year, which includes access to the 1000 Deck Club.

CPC also offers a variety of other decks, from the well over a dozen successful in house projects to other popular industry designers and brands. The retailer also sells magic and accessories to cater to all your playing card needs.  

As an added incentive for our readers, we have our usual "Kardify" coupon code that can be used at checkout to receive 10% OFF your entire order, as well as a special CPC Club Membership discount. Use coupon code "kad10" to receive $10.00 OFF any CPC membership!

This means you can sign up for a CPC Membership for as low as $4.95!

We wish CPC continued success and are looking forward to the second deck to be added to the 1000 Deck club sometime in November!

Vistit Collectable Playing Cards and take advantage of the savings!


REMINDER!
Don't forget to keep an eye out for the Kardify/CPC Monthly Deck Display Giveaway starting October 1st on the Kardifys Facebook page!