How to Design and Sell a Deck of Cards in 30 Days.
If you’re reading this, you might have heard horror stories from people that took years to produce a deck of cards that never came into production. I was one of those people.
The first renders of Cookies & Cream Playing Cards.
Having been a magician and creator for a decade (I’m not trying to sound like a magic veteran), I have been obsessed with the idea of producing a deck of cards.
My designer and I have toyed with a whole bunch of concepts and designs.
Whenever I thought about producing one of the decks, I always got told something similar to:
You have to fund the deck through Kickstarter, then print with USPCC. If you’re lucky, the deck will get funded and you’ll have 2500 decks turn up at your parents’ house and maybe make a few hundred dollars for the stress of thousands of emails and invoices.
I really think that this approach is way outdated. Most decks will go through Kickstarter, but there are so many more options than USPCC’s (quite frankly) poor quality control and long waiting lists and fulfillment times.
A few printers that are taking over the card world are:
Cartamundi
Hanson Chien Productions
Sunwell Printing
Taiwan Playing Card Co.
Expert Playing Card Company
The minimum order quantity for a bunch of playing card companies has gone from 2500 to 500, which in some cases can eliminate the need for Kickstarter.
The point is, it’s extremely possible to create and sell a deck of cards within 30 days. Because I (and some friends) have done exactly that.
I worked on a team in 2020 as a private consultant, to produce a line of decks of cards. We went through so much research and development, there must have been a total of nearly 100 deck designs, along with countless plans and timelines.
None of these decks were ever produced.
I’ll be honest, it was a bit soul-crushing to put your all into a deck of cards, for it to never happen.
I mean, I can’t really complain because I got paid. But, I would’ve loved to see the decks in production (maybe one day, they will).
The other day, I went to visit Beau Cremer - wait, let me use his full title - Beau Spangles Coffee Cremer. And I saw the final prototypes for his latest deck of cards, Trash and Burn. I couldn’t believe how quickly he had produced the cards.
For the 3 or 4 days that I was in Belfast, I called my designer (Louis) and had him send over the deck design we’d been working on for the last week or so. Beau then created the renders, and before I’d boarded my flight back to London, they were in print and available to preorder on my website.
This was so surreal to me, Louis and I had been messing about with this concept of combining magic gaff cards into a specific (iconic) design for a while now. And to think that before going to Belfast it was only fictional amazes me.
Fast forward to just under 3 weeks later, I had 500 of my own deck arrive on my doorstep.
This is not a render.
I’m currently fulfilling each order, by hand, on my parents’ dining room table. I’m looking forward to creating another deck once these (hopefully) sell out.
If you are interested in the cards, you can check them out here.
Thanks for reading this blog, if you enjoyed it, feel free to let me know in the comments section of this blog post.
Have you ever created a deck of card? Or do you plan on creating a deck?