This is one of those occasions when the passion for cards and the desire to make the dream of creating a deck true are the strongest motivations. Our friends from Jacks and Jokers have decided to relaunch their first deck for the third and very last time: PARAMOUR. Paramour is a classic-inspired deck, with characters from fairy tales and traditional love stories. The knights, the kings and the queens are exactly that, drawn with colorful delicacy. The characters are the…
Although it wasn’t the first time he designed playing cards, Stephen W. Brandt (Swabbed Decks) broke in mid-2018 into the world of playing cards crowdfunding with his personal and imaginative style in the Halloween deck. Along last months Stephen has learned a lot about this convulse business and has not stopped offering new and interesting proposals. Now, under the new seal name fig. 23, one of his most ambitious projects begins with CAPRICORN. Capricorn is not just a…
Summer and vacations are over in many countries and the return to reality, work, school, routine is inevitable… However, Max Playing Cards is here again to offer you a new installment of decks with quality , elegance and carefully design… three words always linked to a brand: ART OF PLAY. Since the latest news last Christmas, Art Of Play has launched many new decks in collaboration with different artists. Here are some examples that may interest you. TOM’S TOWN…
After the successful project of the Sapphire deck in the Crown Jewels series, SVI Group has just launched the second one following the wishes of their backers: EMERALD GREEN ICE. Gemstones have traditionally been associated with magical properties and are part of a multitude of stories and legends. and the Crown Jewels series combine the usual historical and adventurous atmosphere of SVI with inspiration in gems. Precious stones have traditionally been associated with magical properties and are also part of…
Mythology is a huge source of artistic inspiration and Norse mythology has been especially used during the last years. Today I bring you a new deck inspired by the magical world of the Norse Gods: WALHALLA.. When a soldier dies in combat, he is brought to the presence of Odin in Valhalla or Freia in Fólkvangr, the best know god and goddess of Norse mythology. Inspired by these gods, the WALHALLA decks take a tour of the family tree and the…
Jack Brutus Penny is a nonsense writer, illustrator and English teacher based in Japan. His experience in the artistic world has led him to create written and printed works in which respect for nature is a common denominator. Jack leaps now to the card design world with a completely original and different deck: CULTURAE ANIMALIS. This is one of those projects that you have to read slowly to be able to squeeze all its juice. The talent and the enormous…
Two great forces come together to bring card fans to an iconic deck: EMPEROR. Penguin Magic, internationally well-known for and selling online playing cards and magic items, has teamed up with one of the most popular and elegant designers, Mark Stutzman, capable of turning a brush and a pen into a fabulous and inspiring tool to create art. Conceived by Kevin Reylek, EMPEROR is much more than a custom deck: it represents the spirit behind Penguin Magic and seeks to…
Let’s not fool ourselves, crowdfunding is more unstable than ever but there are a few creators with guaranteed success. That’s the case of the great friend of Max Playing Cards, Ondrej Psenicka, who after almost thirty days of campaign has overcome many funding records with the new editions of his fantastic BUTTERFLY deck. After unlocking many stretch goals, Ondrej wanted a really happy and wild ending for the last (or not) stretch goal (1800% over the funding goal). One of…
Continuing with the series that successfully started a few months ago, Nomads Playing Cards has released the second deck: LUNAR AND ZODIAC: YEAR OF THE RAT. This series takes as reference the relationship between the nomads of Xiongnu in ancient Mongolia and the well-known Chinese lunar calendar represented by 12 animals. In this calendar each animal is related to the lunar year of birth and also marks, according to its beliefs, the destiny of each person. This project is part…
Hans Holbein the Younger was a German artist who masterfully commanded different expressions of pictorial art and printmaking. Known as one of the greatest portraitists of the 16th century, one of his most controversial works, of which he even had to conceal his authorship, was the series called “Dance of Death”, 51 xylographies (woodcuts) showing medieval allegorical drawings with sarcastic allusions to the Church of the time. Inspired by these works, Sergey Kostyuchenko has launched the second campaign of an…