Red Stripe | Classic Edition
Red Stripe | Hand Drawn Edition
Inspiration
Hello all, since 2015 I have been in a continuous process of creating the Red Stripe Playing Cards. This colorful deck is inspired by stained glass, cardistry, modern art, cubism, and architecture. The design comes from the concept of wanting a solid stripe in the middle to accent the bright color palette I had in mind. I wanted to play with the idea of having a deck that was both borderless and bordered. I didn’t know how I wanted to execute the idea but I knew I wanted to apply the same concept to the face of the cards, so I started there.
Face Cards
With the spot cards, I knew I wanted to change the orientation of the spots from the classic 808 design we all love. The court cards on the other hand were another monster entirely. To put it simply I just let my hand freestyle and create different abstract lines throughout the paper, filling in the resulting shapes with color. Next I took court cards from a “normal” 808 deck and studied them paying close attention to which way the faces were looking, if they held any items unique to the character, if they had facial hair or any other details I could find. In empty cavities and shapes, I started drawing my interpretation of each court card in a continuous line and cubist inspired style. I made sure every line went to the edge of the card while adding in the unique details to each court card as I went. Once I made the court cards I brainstormed how to make the back design resemble the court cards. After about 4 drafts, I came up with a pattern I liked.
Going Digital
Naturally, I wanted to design a deck that not only looked good when held idly in the hands, but also looked good in movement during flourishes and magic. It was important to me that the deck also look interesting when turned face up. Now I was faced with a dilemma, how was I going to convert all my drawings and ideas to a computer and re do everything? Would it still even look good once it was “perfect”? With the help of my friend Erin DeVine, we sat for hours upon hours scanning and tracing my designs and playing around with color schemes. While all this was happening, I had the bright idea,”Why not just redraw the deck onto actual playing cards? That should work right?”
The Hand Drawn Deck
A supportive friend, Gian Luca sent me some blank decks to test out the idea. Seems easy enough right? Wrong. Well I knew the faces of the cards would be easy enough but my main challenge was then duplicating this massively complex deck design 54 times perfectly. My first thought was, “Oh, I could just get a stamp that’s the size of a playing card.” I figured I could stamp all the areas that would be black and fill in the rest of the color by hand. Finding a stamp company took too long and cost too much money for the custom design I desired. Since I’d done everything by hand up to this point, I thought why not just bite down and do it all by hand? Easier said than done. I had to make two templates of the same design, but in different coverage areas, and even still there was a lot of the design I had to do by freehand. For 8 hours a day, 3 days straight, I colored in each pocket of color, color by color, like a human CMYK printing machine. Next I added all the black line work to frame the colors and hide any extra bleeding. Finally the main feature of the deck, the red stripe, completed the design.
Kickstarter
Once I was done with the deck I fell in love with how unique the entire piece looked as a whole. By that time we converted my original drawings to the computer and sent off the design to get prototypes. Once I had both the hand drawn and digital versions of the deck in my hands, I couldn’t decide which I liked more. I had a bias toward the deck I spent hours creating but both decks looked amazing. I decided I wanted to make a Kickstarter project for the deck to see how many people would be interested. Sadly the project did not get funded, but luckily I got a few offers from people wanting to invest in my idea. They felt the deck should still be made even though the Kickstarter didn’t go as planned.
Production
I narrowed down my offers and decided to partner with Hanson Chien after I saw his work. Around that time he also had a deck of playing cards on the market (Chicken Nugget playing cards). Through countless Skype sessions, and sending files back and forth we completed the final design for the deck. I wanted the colors to look like the markers I used for the hand drawn version while maintaining the same vibrance as the colors on my computer screen so we decided that the deck should use Pantone colors. The Red Stripe playing cards were printed in Taiwan through Hanson Chien Production Company so my art will get international exposure.
Media
Here you will find a video of me creating a hand drawn deck and an interview with Daniel Madison, a fellow “magician” and card handler. I hope you guys enjoy the deck and use them in ways I couldn’t have imagined.
Imagination is more important than knowledge. -Albert Einstein
For custom Red Stripe inspired fine art, such as hand drawn decks, uncut sheets, prints and more, contact Omar at redstripes@omarrenfro.com.