Author (Read 3785 times)

karak · « **on:** October 27, 2012, 05:03:57 PM »

New thread as the old one has a glitch.

We are creating a deck, it will be on KickStarter and any ideas are welcome.
We are a husband and wife design team and a single artist out of South America. The idea for the deck was originally tied to an RPG on KickStarter. As we were handling the KickStarter we realized that the deck is a project all by itself.

The chromatic deck was the design of our artist to try to hit a look that somewhat resembled a normal back but also looked pretty different visually.
Don on the forum assisted us with some good ideas. Changing the fonts, pips, and making the front design light enough to barely be noticeable.
I also have to thank USPC as they went to bat for us on a couple of our art schemes which involves monsters and so forth. We lost the King of Clubs because it looked to scary but they allowed us to keep the tuck box design which was awesome.

The mission for this deck was to have the following characteristics-
Unique front design for the pips. A bit more than some other cards out there.
The chromatic back has 3-4 images hidden within it when viewed at different angles
Handle effectively for all kinds of players
I have left the 9 and the 5 with the darker face to see the pattern that will be there.

Tuck
Sample backs(excuse the misspelling on the back of the old card)
Sample faces
Kings(Spades is in a new mockup right now)

The spades are being reworked as they were too obscure of a design to pass as spades in a normal deck.

karak · « **Reply #1 on:** October 27, 2012, 06:51:56 PM »

Also we got our metal card back draft(border is from our art draft) from the manufacturer and they didn't round the corners, I did for the picture. They will hand grind them down.
Some nice stuff. NO sharp edges! Will have a fine finish to them, and some will come with backing for being coasters and others will come in larger versions. They liked the art so much they made a massive about 4 times that big, version for themselves to hang. It looks amazing!

We will have them modify the contrast a bit and get them cracking!

xela · « **Reply #2 on:** October 27, 2012, 09:22:52 PM »

I love the blue back design. Are you sure you can get the borders so thin though?

John B. · « **Reply #3 on:** October 27, 2012, 10:38:02 PM »

Quote from: alex. on October 27, 2012, 09:22:52 PM

I love the blue back design. Are you sure you can get the borders so thin though?

I like the red, if you could have a red gaff card, I would love, especially if one side red one side blue.
Also as Alex mentioned with the borders can you? I know he had issues with vortex decks borders my gaff card has thinner borders then the decks that went out.

Don Boyer · « **Reply #4 on:** October 27, 2012, 11:56:26 PM »

Quote from: John B. on October 27, 2012, 10:38:02 PM

I like the red, if you could have a red gaff card, I would love, especially if one side red one side blue.

I think he had to ditch the red back design - not because it was red but because USPC balked. The red back design appears to have a "demon" character while the blue one is clearly some kind of dragon/reptile head. They seem to be getting pretty touchy over there about what they print.

I LOVE the metal card. That would be a gorgeous tier reward. If you want to go whole hog, you can create framed sets of these without a cover glass, almost like sculptures that hang on a wall. Put some barbed wire and chains around it in a decorative arrangement... Yeah, I can see that... But that would be absolute top-tier stuff, the kind that often doesn't ever sell.

Those thin borders, if executable, will be gorgeous. It's simply a matter of whether USPC complains too much about it, because you'll have a higher waste rate in Quality Control and have some misaligned backs because USPC can't do very precise work. I'm sure you'll come to some agreement with them - others have.

karak · « **Reply #5 on:** October 28, 2012, 01:07:27 AM »

Thanks guys. Honestly without everyones help in various forums, Don has helped a bunch of times, and the overall amazing ability of our entire team we would have all stroked out by now:)

As for the thin borders. Basically the plan is to try to get that authorized and work with USPC. If they do balk then we will increase it incrementally.

Special note around the red card. We are making some small adjustments to it to get it reauthorized for late use. A limited deck? A later deck if we do well? Not sure.

All I can say is we currently have a blue, red, green, white, and black deck back. We moved forward with the blue due to its distinctiveness and it got passed the easiest through printer guidelines. USPC did remove our favorite card from the deck, the King of Clubs, man that hit hard. I mean the entire team was down for a day or two about that. The design really fed into the deck. I am very happy with the changed King but that original had my heart.

The metal card and glass cards. So the metal cards we will most likely release in a series of 4. Kings, Queens, Aces, Jacks, and if the supplier allows maybe clubs, spades, hearts, diamonds.

Glass cards. We have a supplier who offered a very very limited supply of mounted glass cards. I might put up 1-2. As Don said those are top tier kinds of things.

Don Boyer · « **Reply #6 on:** October 28, 2012, 02:07:33 AM »

You can always make the rejected King design into an art print...

The "secret King!"

karak · « **Reply #7 on:** October 28, 2012, 03:24:18 AM »

Man...Don that is a great great idea!

karak · « **Reply #8 on:** October 28, 2012, 04:06:59 AM »

Got some good KickStarter news this evening...or early morning I should say.

Locally a tee shirt company is going to do our art for our teeshirts. Which means we step up the shirt in quality and get the shirts without shipping and can customize them more than originally thought. We got to keep them at 15.00 for a double printed tee-shirt with a higher durable quality than many others. Exciting.

We also got a look at our custom dice and poker chips. Both are amazing. It is all coming together.

karak · « **Reply #9 on:** October 28, 2012, 10:28:12 PM »

Got the Queen of Hearts mockup today.

Also got the Queen of Spades art. No spade yet as we are reconfiguring that. Nice connection with the card backs I think.

karak · « **Reply #10 on:** October 29, 2012, 11:57:32 AM »

New Spade Design.

karak · « **Reply #11 on:** October 29, 2012, 04:59:52 PM »

Ok all.
Here is the preview KickStarter. We are missing Spades cards in various places(to be put in tonight or tomorrow) editing needs to be done, and final art has yet to be posted. The general rewards are placed, and a section for managing pledges has been placed as well.

Things I am thinking about changing:
Full size cards for kings and samples. Makes the KickStarter look HUGE.

Feel free to hammer away.

Link: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1170969302/803765856?token=ec682a3e" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Some notes:
Pricing has been specced out. If you see something really amiss feel free to post it and I will check it out. I could have copied a price wrong.

Card prices. We have 3 offerings. 2 early birds and the normal price at 8.00. We tried to lower our international prices to the lowest possible cost without impacting any other rewards but if you see something amiss point it out.

We didn't go nuts on rewards. We have a couple unique extras but many are limited because WE are producing them. So instead of 1000's of card boxes we have a couple dozen that will be boosted if we get a large number of pledges at those levels.

If that sounds idiotic, feel free to say so as we are still debating the card boxes for sure.

John B. · « **Reply #12 on:** October 29, 2012, 07:30:50 PM »

So with the early bird special could I get as many as I want at that price? When will you make it live?

karak · « **Reply #13 on:** October 29, 2012, 07:48:47 PM »

Quote from: John B. on October 29, 2012, 07:30:50 PM

So with the early bird special could I get as many as I want at that price? When will you make it live?

Currently we have it as a mix of other offers we saw on Kickstarter. Some offer as many decks someone wanted. Some offered 1 and no other decks at that price. We are trying 1st deck at that price then additional ones at the normal price. We may switch that up according to how thin our margins are.

The accountant works tomorrow and he is running numbers on 3 different versions of the early bird so that may change. Suggestions? We are open to any ideas.

Live will be NOV 1st.
Spades Ace and 9 for samples are attached.

karak · « **Reply #14 on:** October 29, 2012, 08:38:35 PM »

Changed early birds to unlimited number of decks.

John B. · « **Reply #15 on:** October 29, 2012, 10:18:24 PM »

when will it be live? I like the early bird, but I just want to make sure I can get as many as I want at it.

karak · « **Reply #16 on:** October 29, 2012, 10:50:23 PM »

Quote from: John B. on October 29, 2012, 10:18:24 PM

when will it be live? I like the early bird, but I just want to make sure I can get as many as I want at it.

November 1st. I will announce in a couple places.

John B. · « **Reply #17 on:** October 29, 2012, 10:57:49 PM »

ok what time? I want to get a few decks at the early bird special price.

karak · « **Reply #18 on:** October 29, 2012, 11:35:59 PM »

Most likely around 7am pacific standard time.

To make sure people here and at United Cardists get in early I will post here when I open it. We are also working on a couple good 6 and brick level pledges right now. Making them worth peoples time.

John B. · « **Reply #19 on:** October 29, 2012, 11:44:34 PM »

yea if I can I would rather just get 3 decks at the early bird special price.

karak · « **Reply #20 on:** October 30, 2012, 01:16:24 PM »

Most likely we will be launching tonight. I will post here. This gives us a bit of extra breathing room in a couple areas.
The exact time is not known. But I will post here BEFORE I go live.

John B. · « **Reply #21 on:** October 30, 2012, 02:18:15 PM »

question. If I pledge via the early bird special and you end up doing the limited un certain red deck would I be able to add to my pledge so I could get one?

karak · « **Reply #22 on:** October 30, 2012, 03:37:35 PM »

Well the guy making the steel decks gave us an amazing deal on 10 full card decks.
So its 33 for 4 cards + 5 if I have to put backing on them myself. And 250 for a full deck which is a massive savings on the full deck if you do the math. He helped us out. If we sell out on the 10 full decks(probably not) then he will put some more up.

I figure we might have some collected that would go that route. So we will be offering a full deck package at 250 which will include a normal deck, the steel deck, and maybe some art. Shipping though...oy vey.

karak · « **Reply #23 on:** October 30, 2012, 04:03:15 PM »

Quote from: John B. on October 30, 2012, 02:18:15 PM

question. If I pledge via the early bird special and you end up doing the limited un certain red deck would I be able to add to my pledge so I could get one?

Yep

karak · « **Reply #24 on:** October 30, 2012, 06:00:07 PM »

We will go live at 4pm pacific time.

karak · « **Reply #25 on:** October 30, 2012, 07:00:31 PM »

Launched in a moment.

sway · « **Reply #26 on:** October 30, 2012, 07:09:09 PM »

For International backers who are looking to buy 2 decks at the early bird price ($6 + $6 + $10), the price would be the same as buying from the DOUBLE DOOM tier ($15 + $7).

Problem here is the pricing method for international shipping at the early bird tier.

karak · « **Reply #27 on:** October 30, 2012, 07:28:55 PM »

Quote from: sway on October 30, 2012, 07:09:09 PM

For International backers who are looking to buy 2 decks at the early bird price ($6 + $6 + $10), the price would be the same as buying from the DOUBLE DOOM tier ($15 + $7).

Problem here is the pricing method for international shipping at the early bird tier.

Hmm. The early bird goes away though leaving the two normal pledge levels. I could have copied that in wrong. Let me look at it. Thanks!

karak · « **Reply #28 on:** October 30, 2012, 08:13:50 PM »

Quote from: sway on October 30, 2012, 07:09:09 PM

For International backers who are looking to buy 2 decks at the early bird price ($6 + $6 + $10), the price would be the same as buying from the DOUBLE DOOM tier ($15 + $7).

Problem here is the pricing method for international shipping at the early bird tier.

You were right. We were using Opera to update that stupid KS page and the first tier didn't update like the rest.
SO we are first giving every single 6.00 pledge a free art print as a thank you for jumping in with a higher than normal shipping cost. I am going through all those rewards with a fine toothed comb again. I really appreciate all you guys help.

John B. · « **Reply #29 on:** October 30, 2012, 08:32:04 PM »

Quote from: karak on October 30, 2012, 08:13:50 PM

Quote from: sway on October 30, 2012, 07:09:09 PM
For International backers who are looking to buy 2 decks at the early bird price ($6 + $6 + $10), the price would be the same as buying from the DOUBLE DOOM tier ($15 + $7).

Problem here is the pricing method for international shipping at the early bird tier.
You were right. We were using Opera to update that stupid KS page and the first tier didn't update like the rest.
SO we are first giving every single 6.00 pledge a free art print as a thank you for jumping in with a higher than normal shipping cost. I am going through all those rewards with a fine toothed comb again. I really appreciate all you guys help.

Do only the international buyers get the art print? Or domestics too? I pledged for 3 at the $6 early bird special.

karak · « **Reply #30 on:** October 30, 2012, 09:06:55 PM »

Every single person. No one gets away from our mistake:)

John B. · « **Reply #31 on:** October 30, 2012, 09:37:53 PM »

sweet I am glad I pledged.

sway · « **Reply #32 on:** October 30, 2012, 10:03:38 PM »

Quote from: karak on October 30, 2012, 08:13:50 PM

You were right. We were using Opera to update that stupid KS page and the first tier didn't update like the rest.
SO we are first giving every single 6.00 pledge a free art print as a thank you for jumping in with a higher than normal shipping cost. I am going through all those rewards with a fine toothed comb again. I really appreciate all you guys help.

Wow, that is awesome and kind of unexpected.

I was uncertain about increasing my pledge and getting 2 decks on the early bird tier because of the escalating costs on shipping.

Thanks for taking my post into consideration. I just hope this doesn't get much onerous on you for domestic pledges.

Edit: by the way, I think this topic should be moved to Playing Card Plethora, right?

karak · « **Reply #33 on:** October 30, 2012, 10:38:01 PM »

Well Sway I don't believe in doing anything half assed. We made a mistake thats life. Its a hundred pieces of art on us. Life goes on you know:) You helped us out big time by pointing it out.

Made a new thread as directed in the other forum area.

karak · « **Reply #34 on:** November 05, 2012, 02:56:56 PM »

Joker Draft from a pledge participant.