The Elements Deck (Ah another deck of cards)

[silver]

If nothing else, this deck is a tribute to the " 'I don't know anything about design' - It doesn't matter" topic.  I had marginal experience in Illustrator when I started this, and zero in Photoshop.  It's all about desire, time, and effort.  If you have the first, you make the other two.

Anyway, as you might imagine, the deck has a classical elements theme based on earth, air, fire, and water.  It's a fairly bright deck of cards, as opposed to most things you see either at E, T11, etc or even on Kickstarter.

Also, I've been talking with Jamie Grant and Joe Porper himself to help put together some pretty cool custom rewards for the project.  That means 'Anything is Possible' bottles and one-of-a-kind card clips, on top of the usual batches of decks and uncut sheets. I'll also be making Invisible Decks for those interested.

If you guys are interested, you can check out the page here: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/592285363/elements-custom-playing-cards-by-jackson-dolan

Let's get these funded so they serve as inspiration to any other aspiring artists out there.   

[John B.]

Interesting, I am actually working on a deck based of elements that might not ever hit the markets, that was done completely different then this.

[dee1orean]

As I said in the other thread for this deck I was ready to pledge for this deck after reading the kickstarter page seeing the pip design, the Ace of spades and court cards which look amazing.

Unfortunately I then saw the back design, 7 different colours if you include the white. So many different conflicting designs, I can see what you were doing  with those blue "wings". If you'd chosen one solid back colour with the large circles containing the smaller element circles then you'd have my money. unfortunately I can't look at that back design for too long. I know you said it took a long time to design and I know it's difficult to accept criticism on something you've worked hard at so I apologise  for that but this part of the board is to showcase designs, to test the water if you like and to recieve feedback, good and bad.

So I'll say once again;
Pip design - Awesome
Aos - Awesome
Court Cards - Awesome
Back design - hideous  sorry

Of course this is just my opinion, others may differ.

Good luck with your project

[Don Boyer]

As I said in the other thread for this deck I was ready to pledge for this deck after reading the kickstarter page seeing the pip design, the Ace of spades and court cards which look amazing.

Unfortunately I then saw the back design, 7 different colours if you include the white. So many different conflicting designs, I can see what you were doing  with those blue "wings". If you'd chosen one solid back colour with the large circles containing the smaller element circles then you'd have my money. unfortunately I can't look at that back design for too long. I know you said it took a long time to design and I know it's difficult to accept criticism on something you've worked hard at so I apologise  for that but this part of the board is to showcase designs, to test the water if you like and to recieve feedback, good and bad.

So I'll say once again;
Pip design - Awesome
Aos - Awesome
Court Cards - Awesome
Back design - hideous  sorry

Of course this is just my opinion, others may differ.

Good luck with your project

I pretty much agree.  Simplify the back a bit - either lose some of the detail or stick to a single color to allow it to show through better, perhaps brown or green (or maybe two decks each in a different color, brown and green)!

I was also surprised to see the club representing fire.  I would have thought the heart (since it's RED) or the spade as better choices.  A club would be excellent for wind - the stem is a thin blast of wind, while the round leaves would each be a vortex of wind created by that blast.  Alternately, you could use the same representation with a spray of water droplets to show clubs as the water suit and make hearts into fire, since emotions felt in the heart tend to "smoulder" or "burn" in much of poetry.  The diamond was a good choice for earth.

[vmagic]

I agree, the back design is crazy busy and I told the guy to basically try again later on. It doesn't help there are so many other kickstarter decks there at the same time. And I agree also that fire should be represented by a red pip and not a black one.

[Don Boyer]

It doesn't help that Silver seems to have a sort of "self-deprecating" style that doesn't encourage customers to buy because it's good and stands on its own merits.  You want to talk things up, make people feel good about buying, and not make them feel either disinterested or sorry for you.  Neither of those two help sell anything - the customer is either completely neutral to you or is made to feel bad for you, making themselves feel bad in the process.  The power of positive thinking would do wonders here.

And the fact that he hasn't posted since his first post five days ago implies disinterest on his part, which doesn't encourage positive interest on our part.