Playing Card Facts

Traditional suits in cards:

• Spades
• Clubs
• Diamonds
• Hearts

There are 52 cards in a total deck of cards.

9 total numbers in a suit as well as an Ace, Jack, Queen and King.

Styles of decks:

• Ambigram– Something that can be flipped and still be read and often done with words for effect.
• Bicycle Cards– The most common card brand renowned for its quality, they come in a variety of editions and themes. 
• Stylized– Black decks often with gold and silver holographic features adding a futuristic twist onto an old fashioned style.
• Themed– Often tied into a theme or culture, this style of playing cards will add unique visual styles to match the chosen theme with the numbers and suits.

Playing Card Specification

Dimensions of playing card

Height-88m

Width-63mm

Must indicate a number and a suit

Could be an ambigram

Must be double-sided

Have a visual style

2 Number Cards, 1 Face Card, 1 Ace of Spades

Moodboard Ideas For Playing Cards

For my playing cards, I have decided to follow the routes of one of my favourite artists Tim Burton, therefore I did some research on his artwork and drawings and included these into my mood board. As well as this, I included some images of playing cards other people have made including Tim Burton’s designs for inspiration, some following themes of old-style vintage cards, and some looking more futuristic. I continued by finding a colour palette I would like to follow and the colours I would like to include in my work, followed by researching different fonts in which I chose a more gothic and victorian style of font approach. For my approach to the playing cards on first ideas, I would like to follow the gothic style of drawings Tim Burton had made and recreate these making them look more digital adding a modern approach to them as well as making the design on the card itself look original making it a seethrough type of plastic. As these are my first ideas the approach to this may change when it actually comes to creating my cards.