Dear members of the Playing Card Forum!
We (three hobby poker players and designers from Germany) plan to develop our first custom poker deck. I have been around in pokerchip forums and registered here to ask you experts for feedback.
As a first step, we would like to ask you: What theme would you like to see on these cards? There are so many nice custom decks out there, it´s really hard to find a cool theme...
Black Forest
This is where we come from. The deck will include Kings and Queens, fitted in traditional dresses and supporting elements like deers, trees, cuckoo clocks etc. - for all who love nature and hunting down their opponents on the table.
Zen
Traditional Zen patterns and calligraphy, implemented with China ink. Think of bamboo drawings, cherry blossom, warriors. Meditate first and crush the other players afterwards!
Maya
Think of the typical ornamental patterns, drawings of Maya divinities, animals, temples. Be part of the legendary history of this ancient civilization.
Mafia
A collection of some of the most popular Mafia dons in history meeting for a game of poker. Don’t get caught cheating!
Movies
Movie cast of our favourite movies. Tyler Durdan (Fight Club) meets Tony Montana (Scarface) meets Black Mamba (Kill Bill) meets Hunter S. Thompson (Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas). Each character will be hand-drawn, exaggerating their personality - meet your old friends in new suits.
We would be delighted about your help, please follow this link to vote (just a Google Form), 10 seconds and you’re done:
http://bit.ly/1VEbo3G
Thank you for your support, kind regards
Fabian, Stefan, Alexej
Well, I checked out the Google Form and the single, multiple-choice question doesn't really cover the depth of the answer required...
First of all, know that for "traditionalist" poker players, the market is very limited - they seek out only traditional card designs, generally made of plastic and done in bridge size. If you're looking to catch the casual poker players, the "beer and pretzel" poker night groups, you have a little more leeway but you don't want to stray too far from traditional. To that end, you'll want to observe the face design standards used as part of the International Standard for playing card design. By this, I'm referring primarily to court card design - which Jacks are one-eyed, what Queens are holding flowers, which King is holding a sword and appears to be stabbing himself in the head with it (he's really holding it behind his head in mid-swing, but who am I to argue with the name "Suicide King?"), that sort of thing. Even in the casual poker crowd, there are players that rely on these design features and look for them in their decks.
As far as theme... A deck's theme should be personal to the designers, not something chosen by vote! I'm sure you've heard the term "design by committee" - it often stands in as a simile for "too many cooks spoil the broth." You want your design to have a clear vision, and that vision should be something you're all passionate about.
As far as the marketplace goes, I'll go over your themes one at a time and give you the pluses and minuses of each.
Black Forest - EXCELLENT choice, rarely seen in the custom deck arena. You could even draw upon elements from traditional German and Swiss deck designs, elements not usually seen in an International Standard deck.
Zen - We've seen Asian-themed decks and we've seen minimalist decks. Minimalism is overdone and not very popular at this point, and Asian themes are probably at or past peak. If you wanted to go this route and REALLY stand out, you'd have to do something rather extraordinary to capture the market's attention.
Maya - I've seen Aztec themes but I can't say I've seen Mayan themes. You'd need compelling artwork and a well-integrated design. It's less likely to appeal to poker traditionalists, but more likely to appeal to collectors if done well, especially if you add the right design touches, like gold metallic foil and brilliant colors.
Mafia - so overdone it's not even worth mentioning.
Movies - so fraught with legal issues, simply mentioning it should make your lawyers sleep poorly at night! You'd need permission from the copyright holders of every single movie character - and not just the studios! If you use original artwork instead of images obtained straight from the movies themselves or the studio's publicity departments, you'd also need the actors who portrayed the characters to sign off on the use of their likenesses. Even if by some miracle you managed to secure all the necessary rights and licenses, the end result would be a prohibitively expensive deck because of what you'd need to charge to cover the costs of both production AND legal rights. Seriously, you'd have more fun dancing in a mine field than dealing with all the intellectual property hassles such a deck would create. I worked with someone trying to obtain rights to make a deck of original art based on a single movie - movie license costs were very expensive, but actor likeness licenses destroyed the deal.
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