Natives Playing Cards- Nigerian themed deck

[Eric Lee]

Here's something different from the usual decks we see. Designed by NIgerians but printing with USPCC and shipped by GW. $15 per deck. Worth checking out and supporting designers from that part of the world, if this is your thing.

[Adonael]

Don't mind it at all and glad to see the courts aren't repeating which is something I was worried about. The tuck case in particular has a very interesting aesthetic I totally dig.

[Decknowledgy]

I'm not saying that it draws inspiration or copies (highly unlikely), but those court cards sure feel familiar to JR's Equinox series.

[adim55]

Hey guys, my name is Adim I am the creator of the deck .

Eric Thank you so much for posting this deck here. I am humbled. Thank you all for the kind comments. I am a deck collector, I have been collecting decks for about 6 years now. My first deck was the Playing Arts first deck. Anyway, I usually lurk around this forum from time to time, learning stuff from you all.

As Eric correctly pointed out, my aim with this deck was to create something somewhat unique and of good quality. A collector item I wish existed. I had been nursing and researching various parts of this deck for about 2 years now. Every piece of art is symbolic and there are lots of easter eggs that I could not go into in the KS campaign without it getting ridiculously long. I wanted someone who knew nothing about Nigeria to find this new and interesting and a Nigerian to see the symbolism of their culture all over the deck and still learn things also. This deck was amazing to create because of all the trivia I learned researching it.

This is my first deck and I hope to make more in the series. A series that will be exploring various African cultures to end up with a half brick or brick of very unique playing cards while keeping the deck playable. I play a lot of poker so I wanted that to be easily possible with this too. I welcome any feedback from you guys or the Kickstarter campaign

[Harvonsgard]

Love seeing this deck here. I hope it gets funded. Quirky and fun design.

[3rd dominion]

I think it would looks better if you used black or white colors in background. Too many background elements

[theCapraAegagrus]

It's not completely awful, but, I'm not gonna buy them.

[vasta41]

There's a lot to like here and some things that need improvement. Here's my list:
The theme is great- there are not enough African-themed decks out there.
The colors (on the inside of the tuck) are nice.
The courts are well illustrated.
The back is *okay* though I would prefer it to be two-way and... something is missing. Not sure what, maybe a little more design elements? But a good start nonetheless.
The tuck is awful. There are beautiful cards inside but the tuck does not hint at that whatsoever. I like the mask but I would add WAY more color and also some text- a title at least.
The court cards are well drawn but look lost among all that white space. I think they should be enlarged and maybe some sort of bordering should be added, similar to "traditional" court cards.
I'm not a fan of the font on the cards. Seems like basic Arial or something but a deck like this calls for something a little less basic IMO.
Lastly, the printer. It appears as though you're going with USPCC but it's buried in the bottom of the KS page. People, like me, LOVE USPCC and that should be a major selling point; especially for your first deck. It's quite ambitious but since you went there, advertise it! Add USPCC to the subtitle of the project and plaster it more in the description.

In case this doesn't fund I hope you would consider at least some of my critiques but more importantly I would revisit the printer. A practice that I like is trying a lower funding goal with a cheaper printer and having USPCC as a stretch goal. Good luck with this!

[Harvonsgard]

Some great feedback vasta.

Definitely put USPC higher up in the campaign. Indeed a good selling point.
While I like the deck how it is, I agree that improvements would help selling it.
The blank space at the faces could be improved by putting a fabric pattern (similar like the back) like a banner below the indices. Enlargen would help as well. I wouldn't do it too crazy because I like some blank space around courts to let them breathe, if you know what I mean.
The Queen of Clubs touches the pip btw, that throws me of a little. It feels like this was overlooked, since it doesn't happen at the other courts.
I feel like the courts could use some more colour in general. For example the Queen of Diamonds is mostly white with just some accents of colour.
You showed the inspiration for the King of Diamonds; his head gear is beautifully rich yellow and he wears a rainbow coloured dress - something that isn't really represented at your court card. I do understand that you don't wanna copy n' paste. But go a tad more crazy with the colours - pepper dem!
The back design could be made two-way easily by mirroring the middle stripe (diamond in the middle) and flipping one side 180 degrees.
The tuck box works for me, no need for a title imo when it is already featured at the sides and top flap.

Hope that helps.

[BaconWise]

I love the idea and I agree with Vasta that we need more decks in this style. One of my favorite recent decks is Gakondo, so it makes me happy to see more production coming out of Africa. There is a wealth of culture and amazing art to draw from and I think you have a great project with this deck. I enjoy the tuck and the card backs together. The court card illustrations seem a bit to small to me. I would have removed the extra pip and expanded the court illustrations, but I think this fantastic. Best of luck, Adim!

[Conturbia]

The back design could be easily tweaked to be two-ways, the designer could consider that..

[Conturbia]

I like this project and the original artwork

[adim55]

Hey guys, thank you so much for the feedback so far. I appreciate it, and as my first deck, there were a million and one things I learned on this project and I am still learning.

Some of the feedback you guys suggested I will work to fix them in this printing, stuff like mirroring the back. Although the back is inspired by an actual traditional pattern there is a balance I must thread between following card conventions and actually sharing significant parts of the culture and doing it justice. That being said, I don't think anyone would kill me in Nigeria for mirroring the back.

I will add the USPCC boldly in the campaign! The queen of clubs touching the PIP was intentional but now that you bring up the inconsistency with the other courts, I realize how off it may feel to keen-eyed people such as yourselves, I will fix.

Some changes I agree with but I worry if I change it, backers may have an issue. eg increasing the size of court illustrations and using only one PIP. How does one communicate this or test this if I would do that? If anyone has ideas I am all ears, if you know any campaigns that successfully changed parts of the design, please link below.

Thanks a million for the compliments and kind words from many on this thread.

It took a really long time to get this deck to where it is and I am excited! the response has been fantastic on social media. At the moment 71% funded in 3 days. For those of you who supported the campaign so far, a big thank you!

[vasta41]

Some changes I agree with but I worry if I change it, backers may have an issue. eg increasing the size of court illustrations and using only one PIP. How does one communicate this or test this if I would do that? If anyone has ideas I am all ears, if you know any campaigns that successfully changed parts of the design, please link below.

First off, let it be known that for your first deck you have done a lot of things right so you should be proud of yourself. Many first-timers screw up a lot more major details.

As far as the back design goes, here's a link to an old KS project with a similar back theme: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/ja ... ying-cards Just to give you an idea of how to make a patterned back two-way.

As far as changing the artwork after a campaign has already started, the best thing to do would be to FIRST render the new drawings, THEN email all backers with the changes shown side-by-side with the originals and take it to a vote. When the art is upgraded it seldom meets with resistance. But like I said, I think it would behoove you to redraw the courts first; that way people have a visual to go off of rather than just, "hey, the designs are changing."

For the record I am not a backer. And the main reason is the tuck. I'm not saying you should adjust it for little 'ol me but if it had as much *pop* as the rest of the deck I'd probably be in. I wish you good luck nonetheless!

[adim55]

For the record I am not a backer. And the main reason is the tuck. I'm not saying you should adjust it for little 'ol me but if it had as much *pop* as the rest of the deck I'd probably be in. I wish you good luck nonetheless!

Hi Vasta41 thanks for the link, also thanks for the advice on how to go about changes.

I do think you might be underestimating the pop on the tuck-case . It is silver and gold foiled on a smooth matte box and it is really really hard to get how it really looks in a photo (at least I am unable to). I have some ultra hi-res photos that might give you better insight if interested. They are too huge (32MB) and KS degrades all images uploaded and also changes the color a bit so I am disappointed in the way the images look on KS as opposed to the real thing. I am really happy with the way the tuck came out (in real life). I was going for minimal but elegant and it really has that feel with the reflections of silver and gold.

Its a shame you are not a backer and I hope you change your mind at some point, but if not I totally understand. Regardless thanks for you're contributions

[vasta41]

I don't think I explained myself well. When I said *pop* I didn't just mean tuck bling. Please refer to my earlier post but the bottom line is color and text. I would want some sort of text on the front so if I were to display this deck in my collection it wouldn't just be looked at as a black box with a creepy looking mask on it. Please understand that I mean no disrespect, just that without text the mask doesn't do a good enough job of saying "Nigerian Native Desk" IMO.
And color- the backs and courts are so colorful and the tuck is anything but. It feels like it doesn't belong.

[brownsl]

I appreciate your engagement with UC for this deck. I like it and am a backer. I am excited to see your future work also. Thanks!

[Eric Lee]

Some changes I agree with but I worry if I change it, backers may have an issue. eg increasing the size of court illustrations and using only one PIP. How does one communicate this or test this if I would do that? If anyone has ideas I am all ears, if you know any campaigns that successfully changed parts of the design, please link below.

It took a really long time to get this deck to where it is and I am excited! the response has been fantastic on social media. At the moment 71% funded in 3 days. For those of you who supported the campaign so far, a big thank you!

1st of all, well done so far on getting to 70+% funded in a short time. Let's hope it continues to pick up as after the 1st week, most projects' funding stall around then until the final 48 hrs . That's when the reminders kick in and potential backers think if they want to back.

You may want to use social media like Facebook and Instagram to promote this as well. Some designers use giveaways on these platforms as well to get more backers. But i'm not sure if you have time to devote to managing both KS and social media at the same time. Rulers of Korea and Uranium playing cards did something similar.

As for the changes, use the updates. Many such projects do this, so you're not the only one here. Be clear and transparent with the backers that you're considering changing the backs after getting feedback. Show the changes on the updates and let the backers vote which one they prefer.

Show the results of the vote and the new design. Most backers like this as it shows you engaging with them and in turn , they get to play a part in the final design of the project they are backing.

Don't do more than 2 changes per update as it'll only confuse backers. Do engage with backers in the comments and encourage them to leave feedback. If the search analytics are the same for KS, more comments usually means the search engine will pick it up and push up your project to appear earlier. It may also get noticed by KS staff and they may promote it as well.

[Harvonsgard]

Almost there with the funding. I'm very happy to see that.

For the changes; best is always a survey or poll via mail to your backers. So you'll get to know what the majority wants. While I'm pretty confident that the court changes will be only for the good, I for example am perfectly fine with a one-way back (and would even prefer it).

Like others mentioned before, just be clear and open about the stuff that changes.

I love the pdf download for the additional info, btw. A booklet would be superb, but digital will do as well .

[adim55]

@eric and @Harvonsgard

Thank you both for your feedback. If I do decide to make the changes on this print I will follow the steps, you guys suggest. Eric thanks for the tips on maintaining momentum on the project. I have started an Instagram page @natives_cards and will continue to post on that page various facts about Nigeria, various inspirations and backgrounds on the characters, etc, for the foreseeable future.

@Havonsgard, you have been so kind to us, sharing our project on your Instagram page, thank you, this is very kind of you to do. I am glad you like the project as much as you do. it feels really good to know others like it as much as I do.

[Harvonsgard]

No worries at all. Not much of a following on instagram but I figured every bit might help.

Congrats on getting funded. *pops bottles* . Now fingers crossed for a good rest of the campaign and a smooth production and fullfillment.