First Look: SINS Playing Cards by Thirdway Industries Part 2

This is the second part of our first look at the upcoming SINS Playing Cards series from Giovanni Meroni's Thirdway Industries. In part one, we looked at SINS CORPUS the first unlimited deck in the series. In this first look, we will focus on the SINS MENTIS, the second deck of the campaign.

SINS MENTIS will be available at launch and it is based on the Sins that influence thought. Hence like the first deck, each suit represents a unique theme: Diamonds represent Greed, Clubs is Envy, Spades represents Pride and Hearts is Lust.

If you've noticed, Lust is can be found on both the CORPUS and MENTIS decks. According to Giovanni,

 Lust is doubled because it affects both body AND mind... and it's my favorite sin!

As for the deck design, the backs of SINS represents the Eden, the place where the first Sin happened. Giovanni continued,

In SINS Mentis (right), Eve was planning to eat the Apple of Knowledge, but she didn't actually do that - so Eden was bright. In SINS Corpus (left), Eve ate the Apple and she was banned. Without her and Adam, an eternal night fell on Eden. This means, chronologically, that SINS Corpus was happened after SINS Mentis.

Join us next week when we look at the final deck in the SINS series, SINS ANIMA! The provisional launch date for the campaign will be 17 February 2017. Stay tuned!


To find out more about SINS and anything Thirdway Industries, visit them at thirdway.it or follow them on Facebook.

First Look: ROYAL LINES Playing Cards by Greg Wanko

Launching this Friday on Kickstarter, the ROYAL LINES Playing Cards is a fun and vibrant deck of cards designed by Greg Wanko. The design of the ROYAL LINES deck is well thought out, from the hierarchy to the traditional playing card motifs. Greg explained,

A good deck balances form and function. Filling every card face with embellishments or some uninspired stock photo (like the kind of deck you find in a museum gift shop) weakens the deck because it breaks down the structure. The highest cards should be the most exciting and the lower cards need to play second fiddle. The aces are both low and high so they should be somewhere in the middle in terms of the artwork. These sort of basic ideas about hierarchy and classic playing card motifs are what drove the design of Royal Lines.

About a year ago Greg started drafting the deck in his free time. He started looking at the history and various styles of playing cards and did lots and lots of sketching. Greg said,

My intention was to create a deck that maintains all the playable characteristics of the classic deck but free of the restrictions in production and printing that were present when those designs took shape. The designs themselves are a mixture of rigid forms and colorful patterns. Each suit of royals has a set of common lines that I started from. Patterned segments then expand outward from these lines to form each court.

Strong lines define the custom-illustrated court cards, each with their own distinct traits.

Some people think the original courts represent famous historical figures, while other magisteria exists about the Black Moria and the Suicide King. I wanted to replicate that sort of depth of meaning with my courts by leaving them tethered together, but not overtly connected. Royal Lines for me, is going back to the basics and creating a fun and vibrant deck of cards to be played with first and admired later.

This fully custom deck will be printed by Legends Playing Card Co and will go live Friday, 10 February 12PM Central. Early bird reward tiers are available!

Card Radar: Flight Cards

If your a basketball fan there is no need to even explain what this deck is all about. An homage to one of the greatest basketball players of all time and the shoes that not only carried him to new heights, but became iconic in their own right. 

Flight Cards is the passion project of a small team of sneaker enthusiasts who wanted to showcase the design, cultural influence, and chronology of the greatest sneaker legacy of all time.

Each suit has a curated selection of AJ’s featuring, arguably, the most important sneakers of His Airness’ legacy – the first thirteen. These thirteen silhouettes were the sneakers that propelled him to fame, and were designed and worn during his first and his final games in Chicago.

The sneaker model cleverly relates to the rank of the card: ace is the AJI, 2 is the AJI, 3 is the AJIII, etc. This deck is a history lesson in sneaker culture, and an homage in the form of 55 poker cards.

Flight Cards retail for $20.00, but are available at Touch of Modern until February 13th for $15.99!

First Look: Pipmen World by Elephant Playing Cards

Early last year, Ben Jones and his team at Elephant Playing Cards (EPC) released the playful Pipmen Playing Cards. It was successfully funded on Kickstarter having achieved over 129% in funding. This year EPC is back with a follow-up, introducing Pipmen World.

Pipmen World is a creative new deck of playing cards which features fun little Pipmen interacting with the suit symbols on the face of each card to make unique scenes. On the design, Ben said,

Each card is different, and the court cards (the Jack, Queen, and King) and also unique reversible Pipmen scenes. These colorful scenes make the Pipmen cards incredibly creative, but that is not all the deck has to offer. Each individual scene connects to all the others to create a large picture - a picture of the Pipmen's world!

This puzzle aspect of the deck makes it truly unique. While there has been diptych or even hexastich decks before (a picture in 2 or 6 parts), no other deck has made a self-contained picture with all the cards, which in themselves are individual pictures. Pipmen World is a world first Polyptych puzzle where every card has its place. Ben continues,

In addition to the puzzle aspect, Pipmen World is a fully functional deck of playing cards. The Pipmen interact with the clear suit symbols, and the card number and indices in the corners are completely unimpaired with a white border bounding the artwork. Because of this, the deck can be used for any card game, while still being a great game to bring to parties.

The Pipmen World will be printed by Legends Playing Card Co and will feature silver foil accents on the tuck, custom Pipmen seal and interior tuck printing (stretched goal). Scheduled launch date, February 14th on Kickstarter.