Padbury's Atelier Playing Cards
For my entire career, everything that I have designed has been for digital products. When I left my full time job last year, I wanted to design something that you could hold in your hand.
So I decided to design a Deck of Playing Cards.
I think I can offer a valid perspective here — I own a lot of cards, after all. I don’t like how Padbury has opted to make the cards’ almost entirely blank. Inherent to a deck’s design is its regulation size … doing nothing with the card faces is just wasteful.
As pieces of art, they are beautiful. As decks of cards, they are silly. Needing to look at the small corner pips to identify a card is stupid. There’s a whole canvas of space going unused. The backs of these cards feature a beautiful pattern — the faces deserve the same level of attention and finesse.