Stan Allfrey    

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Card games have always been a large part of my life. However, I find the repetitive designs of European cards outdated and common. This is why I decided to take on this personal project of designing my own, more abstract and unique, deck of poker-sized playing cards.

Taking inspiration from traditional designs and researching further into more modern playing card decks, I created ‘Kaleido’ Cards, named for their loose inspiration from Kaleidoscopes.

The face cards utilise geometric forms and a rich and vibrant colour palette, while still maintaining the traditional attributes of suits, crowns, scepters and their rotational symmetry. The number cards take an unconventional approach with a circular design.

This project has been one of my favourites to date. Playing cards and the games played with them are over a thousand years old, and will, hopefully, continue to be played for thousands more, and I am so glad that my deck makes a very small dent in the long lineage of playing card designs.