I am new to card design and have been working hard for the last two months. I have probably scrapped 2 dozen ideas at this point but I'm getting ready to move forward (FINALLY!!). I should have all the cards completed within a few days but here is a small sample of the back design and color scheme. It will be a full bleed print, 52 poker size playing cards. Please let me know what you think and maybe I'll show some samples of the face cards. My question to veterans is what is the best way to get the word out and get the cards hyped up for the KS campaign? (oh yeah did I mention I'm using KS?) I don't have a website yet although I may try to get one up and running soon. I will probably start a facebook page for the biz and then work on the website (is a website essential if I'm just starting out?)
This is probably a stupid question but I have a "company" name and logo designed but I'm reluctant to show it. Should I work on getting a TM/copyright or is that a waste of my time. I am brand new at this so any advice would be appreciated
OK, some thoughts...
That back is INSANELY busy - that's not a good thing. A huge amount of the detail you put into it will be lost if it went to print. And what theme, if any, is there to the design? To my eye, this looks like the bastard child of a snowflake and a Wookiee's furball that he spat up. I'm not trying to offend or insult you here, just offer critique. If you're going to have this much detail in the back design, there should be a reason for those details, something cohesive tying it together. Otherwise, it's just another pretty Congress deck that the grandparents use on bridge night.
Why print full-bleed? Poker players these days prefer bordered cards as they make certain card cheating techniques easier to spot. Most casinos stopped using borderless decks as a security measure. Now, if you're printing just for cardists, they love borderless designs, or at least a border that isn't white. Magicians are a mixed bag on this - some tricks (as mentioned, gambling sleights in particular) make this a preferred design type, while others (especially involving flipped cards in the middle of the deck, if the back is borderless and the face is white) become more difficult with a deck like this.
To make a clearer judgment on what your deck looks like, I'd need to see some face images. BTW: in an effort to reduce design theft, some designers prefer showing their designs with a watermark in them, and some even go as far as to show them only at an angle to distort the rectangular shape and make it more difficult to forge. Just ask Emmanuel Jose about the Russian forgers who copied his designs before he even had his design completely finished and printed! (At least they gave him copyright credit on the deck, so...)
Getting the deck hyped? Here's a good place to start. There are some other card forums as well. Become a presence at those forums and show off your work. Also bear in mind that the REALLY successful decks went FURTHER than just the card community when promoting their designs. They reached out into other communities as well that would find such a deck of interest. The most successful deck to date had the hook that it was based on a children's fantasy novel series' first book - it took in over a half-million dollars. Get a hook like that, you increase your chances of a hit deck.
Advice before starting a KS campaign: unless you're the world's most skilled and experienced designer (or something close to it), have your design no less than 95-99% completed when you launch. You can tease out the designs, you can accept suggestions and make tweaks, but have the deck pretty nearly done. Also, you need to account for EVERY expense before setting a budget goal - not just every deck and every widget you give away in your tiers, but every postage stamp, every padded mailer, every box, every sheet of bubble wrap and every pizza you order when you have your friends gather at your house for a "packing party" to get your finished product out the door. People who fail to do this often wind up LOSING money on their project. And as custom decks can be very popular internationally, be prepared to fill out a LOT of Customs forms and know what the international postage rates are. Get a price quote from whoever is printing your deck before you even think of launching a KS project. In fact, if you're serious, you should have checked already!
Website? Not 100% necessary when starting. There are some established designers who don't even have their own website (at least not one in English)! Start with a Facebook page and update it regularly while at the same time keeping it below the number of updates that would trigger a spam filter. Same goes for your KS page.
Regarding the company name and logo, branding is fine. But if you're going about it properly, there's a few things to know. Copyrights just require that you publish your work, though registering a copyright with the US Government provides added benefits. Trademarks - well, you need to insure there's no similar trademarked design out there that too close to the design you selected. Just get your company name out there for now and worry about a trademarked logo when you're actually a success. Definitely do NOT include other people's/companies' trademarked or copyrighted work without possessing a license to do so - I don't know how carefully other companies scrutinize such things, but USPC's infamous Legal Department will not permit such a print project to go forward, and the legal hassles that can ensue have been known to sink a project or two in the past. I still remember when NBC Television changed their logo from the peacock to that red-and-blue "N" design back in the 1980s. It turned out that the Nevada Broadcasting Company had already created the exact, same logo in tan and brown, something that didn't get uncovered until AFTER the company made the logo change at great expense. It cost NBC a good few bucks to buy the rights for it - but I imagine their pockets are MUCH deeper than yours...
It might do you good to look up both topics in Wikipedia.
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