Now live on Kickstarter - The Trades
Honoring the folks who build and craft the world we live in everyday.
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/markallender/the-trades-playing-cards-uspcc/

I am getting ready to launch Curious Keyholes on Kickstarter - a new deck featuring radially symmetrical figures derived from a minimalist depiction of the court cards. These will be printed by Noir Arts and will include free international shipping.









There will also be a stretch goal for a Curious Keyholes dealer coin:


My designs tend to be quirky and weird, so with that caveat, i welcome your comments!
Mark

Type+Color is a set of decks utilizing different color schemes as the primary identifiers of each suit - rendered in the different typeface styles - the BOLD SANS deck uses Helvetica Bold and the ITALIC SERIF deck uses Georgia Italic. Pips are placed in the corner of each card, bleeding off the live area.

The previous Kickstarter campaign for these decks wasn't funded, so I am relaunching at three times the price, with fewer options, and a third less duration in the campaign. I was also thinking of making them harder to buy and having the cards actually insult you while you use them (a little trick I learned from the folks who assign sizes to clothing), but I figure hey - baby steps, baby steps...

http://kck.st/1M9BPdX

The budget here is for approximately ten decks, printed thru MPC. They will indicate "FIRST EDITION" (haven't figured out where yet) and will ship with a signed card and other special goodies.

Hey kids,
Ye olde "Farbschemata" deck has been reimagined now as the "Type+Color" series
Check it out: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/markallender/type-color-playing-cards-0

Hopes you likes!

As a result af many inquiries, I have added a LEGENDS stretch goal. If this campaign can reach $7500, this deck will be printed with LEGENDS PCC using their Standard Finish.



If you like the designs, help make this stretch goal a reality. Thanks!
Mark

Here is my new playing cards project in Kickstarter. All of the artwork was run thru an office photocopier and enlarged five or six times before being digitized, thus creating the contours and complex color separations that you see.

In addition, there are 18 different pips for each suit, and no single pip is duplicated on any one card.

Now live in Kickstarter at http://kck.st/1Ovf5nk

I realize this forum is more for magicians and so forth, but my art deck "Interference" is currently on Kickstarter and is nearly funded. Have a gander: http://kck.st/1G7U2Fk

Thanks!
Mark

Hello! YES I do plan to relaunch that deck later this year - prob not on USPCC, but on MPC so I can do a shorter run.  I do have a (flailing) campaign going on Kickstarter right now called "Farbschemata" - http://bit.ly/FarbCards - another "art deck."  I'll be sure to post here when "Interference" launches again.

thanks for the kind words!

Mark

Hello everyone! My name is Mark Allender and I am a designer living in the Akron-Cleveland Ohio area. I have been interested in playing card designs for a little over a year. I have one successful Kickstarter campaign under my belt that featured several preliminary designs. My style tends toward the artistic and has been described as "quirky" and "fun." I often break many so-called sacred rules of card design and then rigidly adhere to others. 

I do have one project live on Kickstarter called "INTERFERENCE" - http://kck.st/Xc9avX - going after a "post-industrial, post-apocalyptic wasteland" sort of feel here.

Thanks!

Mark Allender

Yup! Way ahead of you!
Thanks!
m

Yes, I am aware that it works, but as an "artist with an interest in playing cards" (as opposed to a "playing card designer"), I am going after a certain aesthetic and I'd like to stick with it if at all possible.

My uncle owns a construction company and he had an interesting analogy. If someone needs to have a post in the middle of the home in order to support the structure of the building, they should design the rest of the room such that everyone else who ever comes to that room will want a post like that in the rooms of their houses.

For me, the vertical noise has a "post-apocalyptic wasteland" feel to it that I like and am trying to cultivate. The Futura Black typeface in many ways adds to that experience, especially when used in white on a dark background. Futura Black also has the added benefit of having wide verticals and almost no horizontals - which correspond nicely with my use of the vertical noise - I "interfere" with the indices and pips without losing readability.

Now, a problem remains: how to make "reds" and "blacks" distinct from one another. A border around the artwork completely kills that mood I am trying to create - so I need to find another solution. I may go with "red pips on the red cards" in the end, but I would like to see if there is a more elegant solution first. So that's that...

Okay - here's a 9 of spades next to two prospective 9's of hearts. Thoughts? Opinions? Keep trying?

Cool man. Good stuff. I'll answer just a few of your points directly -

First - the back design is the third image in line on the block marked "jokers." I thought I had called it out in my post, but I guess I left that part out. Sorry about that! It IS a true 2-up back, though obviously far from the traditional concept of a 2-up.

Second, not to write off the magicians, but I really envisioned this design as purely artistic, and not as something that magicians would enjoy using. So if the magician group likes to use it - great, but for this project, form trumps function.

Third, RE: different colors that bleed to the edge. I struggled mightily with that back when I did the original Futura Black deck. I'll go back and struggle some more and see if I come back with a different result, but I appreciate the insight...

Finally, any problem with entering the contest AND doing it on Kickstarter? Just curious.

Thanks again!