Kickstarter: CALAVERAS DE AZÚCAR Playing Cards by Natalia Silva

From the creative mind of designer Natalia Silva comes CALAVERAS DE AZÚCAR, a custom deck of playing cards inspired by the Day of the Dead - a traditional Meso-American holiday dedicated to the ancestors; it honors both death and the cycle of life.

Consistent with Natalia’s other decks, the CALAVERAS DE AZÚCAR Playing Cards are charming, colourful and vibrant. On the design inspiration, Natalia said,

“Calavera De Azúcar” is a skull made out of sugar, which is used to decorate Day of the Dead altars. These sugar skulls are very colorful and whimsical, not scary at all. I absolutely love the Sugar Skull style used for the Day of the Dead.

The symbolism of a sugar skull is rooted in the decoration around the eyes. Flowers are meant to symbolize life, while cobwebs symbolize death. The skulls are designed to be bright and cheerful, being a celebration of the life that once was. Natalia continued,

Sugar Skulls are a traditional folk art from Southern Mexico used to celebrate Day of the Dead. I really love Folk Art. I designed 2 Russian Folk Art decks and now I think it's time for me to explore some new different cultures and traditions.

The first time I ever saw Sugar Skulls was about 8 years ago, when I came to USA (to language school in Los Angeles) to study. As a foreign student, I stayed with a host family. They were a very nice and traditional Mexican family. I was very inspired by their culture and colorful sugar skulls. I think that sugar skulls are very similar to my design style (colorful and simple). So, I want to show my appreciation for the vibrancy of Mexican culture.

The skulls are prominently featured on the tuck box and the card backs are adorned with colourful flowers, leaves, and grapes. These nature elements are also found on the aces and the custom court cards. The well thought out vibrant colours gives the deck a dynamic look.

There will be two standard editions available, the Black and the Blue Edition. Both will be printed by the USPCC and pledge starts from $14. Also on offer are the limited edition: Purple, Green and Red decks printed by MPC. Check out the project page for more info.

Card Gear: Addicted to Creativity

Card Gear is our monthly feature dedicated to discovering new inventory, setup and accessories used every day by card designers, cardists, magicians and collectors. The concept originated from the popular social media site, Instagram: #passthepockets. Whenever one of these hashtags come up on the social news feed, there's always something new to discover, no matter who that person is.

For this month, we have the EDC of Nick Vlow, a 21-year old card magician and graphic designer based in central Russia. Nick is the designer behind Onida, Shin Lim playing cards, Longitude & Latitude and Philtre Playing Cards. You can see some of his other work here or follow him on Instagram: (@nickvlow)

Nick is addicted to creativity, so he always carries a sketchbook to write down ideas for card magic or sketch something new for tattoos or design that comes into his mind. Nick is also an economics student which takes a lot of his time through fall and winter.

Nicks's gear:
+ 68' Omega watch
+ Moleskine sketchbook
+ BarneysNY sunglasses
+ Sharpie marker
+ Micron liners x3
+ Philtre playing cards
+ Apple EarPods
+ iPhone 6S
+ Mulberry Wallet
+ Joe Porper's classic metal clip
+ Swiss knife & flashlight

What’s yours? If you would like your card gears to be featured on Kardify, contact us.

Deck View: Killer Bee Playing Cards

Bold. Modern. Bees.

Designed by Oban Jones for Ellusionist, the Killer Bee Playing Cards is a combination of modern aesthetic and bold elegance.

The deck features fully custom pip, striking hexagon-styled courts, Ace of Spades and the mesmerising card backs. The minimalist matte black tuck box with gold foil accent is elegant and modern.

Available from JP Games.

Kickstarter: 7 Questions with Sergio Roca of the Odyssey Playing Cards

Designed by Sergio Roca, Odyssey Playing Cards is an eye-catching deck inspired by the Orion's Nebula. The deck has been designed with cardists in mind. The vibrant nebula color palette accentuates card flourishes and displays, fanning, spins and cascades will look incredible!

Odyssey consists of 54 cards and features custom suits, aces, courts, 2 custom Jokers and a minimalistic tuck. The vibrant colour palette is consistent across the deck and the diagonal white stripe is prominently featured on the cards. This classy stripe will allow cardists to create and discover new shapes and enhancing displays for their card flourishes.

We caught up with Sergio and had a quick chat about his design background, inspiration and idea behind the Odyssey Playing Cards, design evolution of the deck and his thoughts about the support he has been getting from the cardistry community.

Can you tell us about yourself and what is your design background?
My name is Sergio Roca, I am 21, a student of Telecommunication Engineering. I live in Valencia, Spain and I am a magic and cardistry enthusiast. I have been doing Magic and Cardistry for almost 6 years now and I hope it lasts for much more to come. I am not a graphic designer but I have always loved drawing, photography and image editing. Because of this, I have been able to acquire and learn basic design techniques with which to carry out my deck designs.

What is your inspiration behind Odyssey Playing Cards?How did you come up with the idea?
I have always loved everything related to cosmology and astronomy. So when I decided to design my own deck, I started to investigate more in depth about the universe in which we live in, nebulas, galaxies, cosmic formations and everything in-between. I visited many astronomy websites as NASA, SEDS, Cybersky in order to make the best decisions according to color, thematic, shapes, and figures from the deck. And that's when I realized Orion’s nebula was the key.

How much time did you spend working on the deck?
This is a good question. I came up with the idea of making my own deck two years ago. However, my studies have not allowed me to dedicate myself entirely to this deck, which has caused many delays and living in Spain was another one of the major problems because of the high shipping fee, high customs taxes and the necessity of giving legal features to this project. Nevertheless, three months ago, I made the decision to speed up the project thanks to the help of great professionals like Hanson Chien or my aunt Nuria Martinez who have helped me a lot.

Talk to us a bit about going from the first draft to the final version. How did you get to this finished product?
I started working on the back which has gone through many colour and shape changes. Finally, I gave it a white diagonal stripe, which gives the cards symmetry, and that in my opinion is perfect to create displays. After I finished with the back, I started with the design for every cards face. It took some time but it is what you need if you want to create a very special deck. The first whole designed card was the queen, and from there I kept on with the rest of royalty following the thematic. At the same time, I was working on the first tuck box prototype which was horizontal like NOC v3, however, my intention was to find the best card case design so I set out to examine all possible alternatives and I realized that the classical vertical tuck box fits better.

I tried to show elegance and minimalism with some futuristic touches in every element of this deck and I think that the card case is the perfect example. Moreover, the hardest card to find the perfect design for was the “club”. But after countless math classes designing instead of trying to make out something my teacher said I came up with the ideal Club for the deck.

What was your most brilliant breakthrough when designing the deck? 
Well to be honest, I provided this deck with a lot of minor details, the jokers being really futuristic, the cards case which contrasts nicely with the card's back or the typography or the number “10” which is replaced by an “X”. Any of these details makes this deck really unique. Although, for me the most brilliant breakthrough was the Queen's design. I think that this card shows really well what I wanted to transmit, elegance and minimalism.

We first noticed Odyssey on Instagram. What do you think of the playing card community in terms of the feedback and support that you’ve been getting so far? 
Well, the magic and cardistry community is one of the best, no doubt about that. All of these wouldn't have happened if not for them and I've been receiving feedback from the first picture of the Odyssey Cards I posted. Every comment, new idea, advice or opinion I took it into account to improve my deck according to what cardists and magicians want. I have also received tons of support from the Spanish community on YouTube and Instagram and I am also very grateful for it.

Finally, what are your favourite playing cards?
I have been doing magic and cardistry for 6 years and my favourite deck of cards remains unchanged: Bee Wynn. It may be its finish, or maybe the paper stock, I don’t know what it is, but this deck has something special for me. Blue, purple or red, all sound good to me. I should get more of these. They are perfect!

Thank you for your time, Sergio and Congratulations on hitting the funding goal! At the time of writing, the project is already 117% funded with 19 days to go. If want to support the Odyssey Playing Cards, you can find it on Kickstarter here! 


Pledge starts from €12 (USD$13.50) and the deck will be printed by the Hanson Chien Production Co (HCPC).