Kickstarter: 7 Questions with Bona Fide Playing Cards of Nouveau Playing Cards

The Nouveau playing cards are inspired by the historical and mythological heroes and heroines traditionally featured in the French playing cards in the 16th century. Created by the team at Bona Fide Playing Cards,  the art style, and design are a tribute to the philosophical and artistic trend Art nouveau, promoted and popularized in France.

The deck has been expertly crafted. Fully custom, the Courts feature historical and mythological characters such as biblical King David, Greek goddess Pallas Athena, Roman leader Julius Caesar, legendary Knight Sir Lancelot, and many more! The suits themselves represent different Social Orders. For example, Spade represents nobility, Hearts the clergy, Diamonds the merchants and Clubs the commoners, and the peasantry.

We had a quick chat with Bona Fide Playing Cards on their design background, the Nouveau deck and their experience on different crowdfunding platforms.

Can you tell us about yourself and what is your creative background?
We’re a team based in Spain and consisting of three siblings aged 28, 26 and 23. Our grandfather was a painter and our father has great skill as well so since young we always enjoyed creating and drawing anything that came to our minds, though we never had further aspirations in the artistic world. As we grew older, studies and work left this hobby in the background until we discovered the fantastic world of custom playing cards and then we decided to give it a try during our free time.

What is your inspiration behind the Nouveau deck? How did you come up with the idea?
Aside from our creative background, we always enjoyed playing cards with our family and friends so we decided to create our own deck after discovering Kickstarter and the vast world of custom playing cards. When we came up with the idea of creating our own custom Bicycle deck, the most important for us was to think of a design with a rich meaning and detailed artwork. From then, deciding on Art Nouveau as our artistic inspiration was pretty easy; we wanted to join the history of playing cards, Bicycle and art all in one. The original playing cards as we know them today are inspired by the designs produced in Rouen, France, back in the 16th century. Those decks were the inspiration behind our court cards and suits. From there, we decided to keep it all French and look for an artistic trend contemporary to the birth of the Bicycle brand: Art nouveau.

Talk to us a bit about going from the first draft to the final version of Nouveau. How did you get to this finished product and how did you get feedback?
The easier part was to design the court cards; all we had to do was to portray in a realistic and Nouveau style the characters we took as a reference. The most difficult was to find the right back for our deck. We took Art nouveau mosaics as a reference and did several tries until we came up with the final design. We asked for feedback on playingcardforum.com and our social profiles; we studied the several options and opinions and finally decided on our current back.

Unfortunately, your indiegogo projects did not get funded. In your postmortem analysis, were there any take-away lessons and how did you improve on things?
As we mentioned before, we’re a team based in Spain. Kickstarter is living a big growth as the leading crowdfunding platform but it has yet to expand to other countries. That’s the reason why we tried the project twice on Indiegogo, though we knew it wasn’t the best choice for a playing cards campaign. That was the first and most important mistake and lesson we learned.

As for everything else, it’s our first deck (and project, for that matter) so every step of the way was a lesson, from the creation to the launch and failure of the project. The most important lesson was to have patience and not to give up, even after failure. We were lucky to find people ready to help us improve our deck and our funding chances. We still have a long way to go but we must say that without their opinions and advices, we wouldn’t have made it this far.

So far, what are the difference have you noticed between Kickstarter and Indiegogo? 
The differences are many and not only noticeable for creators, but for backers as well. The main difference is the audience and orientation of the projects launched on both platforms, making Indiegogo suitable for a much reduced range of campaigns. The only advantage we found on Indiegogo was that it offers its services to creators from all over the world, unlike Kickstarter. 

Another big difference between both platforms was a pretty important headache during our first attempts; Indiegogo immediately charges backers their pledges, with no way of changing the perks they pledged for and no refunds until the end of the campaign. Aside from this, the general running of both sites makes one a leader and the other a mere alternative so it’s obvious for both creators and backers that Kickstarter simply works better.

What are your thoughts about the continuous strong growth of playing card projects? 
As with anything regarding design, custom playing cards offer an infinite variety of possibilities for creators because there are no limits for our imagination, so after the success of the first projects it’s pretty obvious that many will want to give it a try with their own ideas. Another aspect that allows the strong growth of playing card projects is the wide and faithful audience of collectors, magicians and playing card lovers in general. Numbers speak for themselves.

Finally, what are your favorite playing card decks? 
It’s hard to decide on a favorite one, but some of the decks we like the best are Heretic by Requiem team, Seven Seas Playing Cards by Brain Vessel Creative, Muertos by Steve Minty and Sherlock Holmes and Federal 52 by Jackson Robinson. We could keep naming but we’d never end.

Love the art style! Thank you for your time and all the best. If you like what you’ve read here and want to support the team at Bona Fide Playing Cards, you can find the Nouveau deck on Kickstarter here. 


Nouveau will be printed by USPCC and the pledge starts from $15. Add-ons such as uncut sheet, handmade wooden box, art print, T-shirt and hoodie are available. Also, there are multiple rewards that will be unlocked once the project hits their set stretched goals, most notable is the Nouveau Turquoise Edition at $30k.

Deck View: Fine Line

ILLUSTRATION, PUZZLE AND MYSTERY

Fine Line is a hand illustrated playing card deck by Dear Adam a collaboration between designer Adam Farbiarz and artist Adam Thompson. Fine Line is a truly unique deck, at 1st glance you may be a bit confused, but once you take the time to really look at the images you'll start to see that there is a "Standard" deck of cards hidden in there. If you enjoy a good mystery, you may be inquisitive enough to find the even deeper connections and meaning to the cards in this deck.

Not your usual "Custom" deck, but definitely well thought out and presented. There are plenty of straight forward decks out there, let Fine Line be that "Unique Puzzle" in your collection.

You can read more about the deck and Dear Adam on Kardify's Kickstarter Q&A, you can also visit the Dear Adam website for more information and future projects. And while your there, you can pick up your own Fine Line Deck and start unraveling the mysteries within.

Kickstarter: 7 Questions with Mark Wright on Duality

Duality by Maven Playing Cards is headed up by 1st time Kickstarter and Artist Mark Wright. Mark has taken an "Old School" and Classic methodology to his creation. Art, style and function come together in one unique playing card package.

With this being Mark's 1st venture into the custom playing card arena on Kickstarter we were happy to have had a chance to talk to him about his maiden voyage and discuss the concept that is Duality.

Can you tell us a bit about your background and interest in Playing Cards?
I was born in Ft. Worth Texas but I have been living in South America for the past couple of years. The past year I was in Brazil just developing this project. I have been an artist since I was a very small child. I won recognition at both local and state level in high-school. After high school I served in the U.S. Navy. Upon completion I began my adult fine arts career winning national scholarships to help pay the cost of my tuition.  While in college I spent a semester in Florence, Italy studying the great past masters. Ever since graduation I have been traveling the world learning from other great artists. My interest in Playing cards started very early when I just lay with my parents old random decks that they had collected during their travels. I have actually been creating custom decks for a couple decades!!! I used to make my own decks with scissors and glue, ruining what was to my parents, a perfectly usable deck of cards. In fact playing cards have had a major role in my life. From playing games with my sailor buddies aboardmy ship to trading magic tricks in the cafes of the world. A deck of cards has always been there. For me a deck is a lot more than just a box of paper.

Could you describe your deck and what inspired Duality?
Duality is the result of a year of creating and re-creating. Duality is a completely handmade deck of cards. This originally came as a desire to pay homage to the Master of The Playing Cards who was an unknown German Intaglio printer well known for his  playing cards.  Using the technique of Intaglio I created a copper plate (details in the video) for every single card. So the process you see in the video, I had to do at least once for every single card. In many cases 2-5 different times. So doing the math you can see why it took nearly a year to complete. Every single detail was carved into copper by me. When I say hand made, I mean that I did not draw an image and simply live trace or create into a vector. Every single pip had to be created by hand. It was not simply a case of drawing four different suits and layering in a clever way. I literally had to make an over-sized deck of cards using techniques that master craftsmen would have used hundreds of years ago. This is not simply my drawings being digitally re-created. I have seen some designers claim to have handmade decks and as an artist I feel they are disingenuous and not completely truthful. Duality is the ONLY deck that was MADE BY HAND.

Did you go through a "Creative Process" when coming up with the concept and presentation of Duality?
Yes absolutely there was a creative process. Duality is actually the result of two separate decks. For years symmetry has played a huge role in my art and photography, it’s a continuous theme that comes from my love of mathematics and order. So in that respect the symmetry and the traditions of court cards was a very interesting thing to play around with. In addition Mr. Sao Antonio the Master printmaker who helped me bring this project to life, had his own understanding of court card symmetry. He then proceeded to show me the evolution from one way directional court cards to the more familiar images you see today. He made a print of a full body king and then began showing me why the print-maker was the one who was responsible for the symmetry we all know today.  All of a sudden the Suicide King made complete sense to me. At this point my eyes and my mind changed in the way I saw the courts of modern playing cards. So as a print-maker I naturally I felt that it was important to create my own permutation of this symmetry. There were no extras drawn in the cards. The faces you see in Duality are simply the result of existing accepted forms, taking those forms and transforming them with rotational symmetry until it was almost indistinguishable from the original. While the others I purposely left a bit more obvious to show the different levels of symmetrical change. One of the most noticeable sets of court cards in Duality is the clubs.

Many designers use many different mediums and tools for their work, what are your "Tools of the Trade"?
For Duality I wanted to try and replicate the tools and materials that would have been available to the Master of the Playing Cards. This was a lot easier said than done. Amazingly in Brazil I had the opportunity to use a 19th century French Intaglio Printing Press. While the Master of Playing Cards was a 14-15th century artist, I felt that this equipment would serve its purpose and probably be the furthest back in history I would be able to go.

What made you decide to throw your hat into the ring of "Custom Playing Cards"?
I decided to finally make one of my decks a reality couple of years ago. As stated earlier I have been making my own homemade decks for years so I felt that I needed to bring my love and professional training into the mix and create something that has not been done in modern playing card design. I could have created something that looked exactly like what was already out there or I could take a chance and deviate wildly from the norm while using those very same conventions as my guidelines.

This being your 1st Kickstarter project, what would it mean to have Duality go from concept to reality?
To have Duality go from a concept to a reality would mean the world for me. Though this was a personal project that took me across 2 continents to make, I also made this for all of the people out there that like me, have a burning attraction to playing cards. To give something I made out of love and to be able to share that with the world is a truly remarkable thing and is the dream of most artists.

But it would also mean that I would have the resources to continue making new decks and I could continue exploring and pushing the boundaries of playing cards.

Lastly, are there any Playing Card Designers that inspired you to move forward with your project and do you collect any of their work?

Yes I am a long time collector of decks. Most of my collection, I only know the country they came from. No manufacturer or artist. But in regards to past Kickstarter projects, I think Lorenzo really hit a home run with his Heretic deck. I was in South America at the time and was I was not able to pledge for that one unfortunately. I also like the original Federal 52 and I credit Jackson with trying to help bring the old Intaglio processes used in the printing of currency to the forefront of cardistry. 

Creating a deck of cards is an old old art and I believe it should be treated with the respect it deserves. I don’t believe it should be reduced to simple copy and paste MS paint decks. 

Duality is being printed by The Expert Playing Card Company and still has 14 days to go on Maven Playing Cards inaugural project, so there is still time to become a backer. 

We want to thank Mark for his time during his busy campaign, to find out more about the Duality head on over to the project page, currently still LIVE on Kickstarter and help make this concept a reality for Maven Playing Cards. You can also follow Maven Playing Cards on Facebook for more up to the minute information and future projects. 

We wish Mark all the luck in the world on his project........now go check it out!

Cardistry: 7 Questions with Jaspas Deck of the School of Cardistry Deck

The School of Cardistry deck was created in conjunction with School of Cardistry, New Deck Order's  (NDO) popular YouTube channel with free Cardistry tutorials for absolute beginners. Created by NDO with experienced Singaporean designer Marcus Lim from SVNTY, the School of Cardistry deck was designed to have a classic and timeless feel, with a contemporary touch.

The designs are completely hand-illustrated. The back design is inspired by traditional playing card backs, featuring Cardistry moves on top of intricate details. The face cards takes on a modern look, inspired by traditional court cards. It was designed to accentuate spinning flourishes, flowing movements, as well as large, multi-card displays.

On New Years Eve, we managed to have a chat with Jaspas Deck, co-founder of NDO about the School of Cardistry, the idea behind the deck, the design process and feedback & support from the cardistry community.

2014 was a fantastic year for NDO! Memorable CoSEA tour, awesome DVD and lecture notes and that CoSEA deck! Can you tell us quickly about School of Cardistry and how it came about? 
Thanks for you kind words! The School of Cardistry is our solution to every beginner Cardists' biggest question.

"What do I learn first?"

We designed a basic structure of Youtube videos that basically help our viewers find something on their skill level provides them a wide variety of moves to learn. This keeps our viewers motivated and makes it fun to learn Cardistry.

The School of Cardistry deck is your second self-funded deck of cards. When did you first start thinking about the deck and where did you get the idea from?
It has always been on my mind. Playing cards, particularly in Asian countries have a negative stigma attached to it. When people see playing cards, they think of gamblers. it's easy to see why we want to shake off that impression.

Another issue I had with standard playing cards is that the faces are rarely ever used in Cardistry. Cardists may use them for a spread or fan, but ultimately, the faces of cards get far less exposure than the backs, which is a pity, that's 50% of a deck that rarely gets seen!

This led me to ultimately design the School of Cardistry deck.

Can you describe the School of Cardistry deck and why you’re passionate about it?
The School of Cardistry deck is unlike anything you've ever seen. It's back showcases a timeless hand-drawn design featuring the School of Cardistry's logo and an array of details referencing both the art of classic card design and hand drawn instructions of old magic instructional books.

Unlike traditional deck of playing cards, the faces on the School of Cardistry deck are very unique, can you elaborate on that?
The faces are where the cards truly shine. Our contemporary face design is your average court card adapted into a beautiful abstract design. The art is postitioned in a way that looks good in both dynamic movements and static displays. It's simply a pleasure to work with.

What role did you play in the art direction and how did you get feedback??
I was the creative director in this project. Simply put, I decided how and who we were going to work with. For this project I knew I wanted an artist could could produce organic looking art and spent a long time trying to find an artist who could meet our standards. After multiple failed attempts, I finally met Marcus Lim from SVNTY and I knew he was the one.

Marcus' style of intricate designs, attention to negative space, and taste in balancing his art was exactly what we were looking for. I pitched to him the concept behind our cards and he got to work immediately. Marcus' and my back and forth allowed the cards to evolve from what I originally had in mind into the final product. It was an amazing process.

What do you think of the cardistry community in terms of the feedback and support that you’ve been getting?
The reception has been stellar! We've shown our cards to many Cardists and when they get the cards, they seem to be hypnotised by the faces of the School of Cardistry deck.

We often find Cardists who use our cards staring at their hands and observing the cards in motion. It feels like a new dimension of possibility has opened to the Cardists when they use our contemporary face designs. We are really happy to see our users enjoy our cards as much as they do.

Finally, what's next for NDO?
NDO has huge plans for this year. We've already signed on a few cardists and are working closely with then to produce tutorials for some of their signature moves. In 2014 we brought some huge things to the Cardistry scene, starting with the School of Cardistry Youtube channel, the one-stop Cardistry tutorial channel, followed by the Cardistry of South East Asia project, a deck, a DVD and a set of lecture notes.

Next we produced the Ripple+4 tutorial pack, a set of moves created by my friend Kenneth Aidan Foo, before ending the year with the School of Cardistry deck, the first of its kind non-standard playing cards. In 2015, we will be looking to push more boundaries and bring bigger, better things to the table.

Wow..! Sounds awesome. Thank you for your time Jaspas and Happy New Year! :) 


The School of Cardistry deck is available from NDO's online store starting from $12. Also, check out and subscribe to NDO's School of Cardistry channel on YouTube for incredible cardistry tutorials.