Deck of Art

< Back

1/3

Aim

To use playing cards as a medium to help aspiring artists get more exposure while making the artworks of established artists more accessible and affordable to wider audiences.

Project

A digital, community-based platform that showcases creative designs for playing cards.

Collaboration with Emilija Tokareva

UX/UI

THE START

"Making your work stand out online is hard: there are so many artists, so many uploads every day"

Interview

"I'd like to own a piece of work made by the list of artists I admire, but for now I can't afford even the smallest creation of theirs on the market ."

Interview

"I want to make designs for playing cards. That's one of my dream

projects to make ."

Interview

PROBLEMS

of CONSUMERS

Most of the works of well known artists are limited edition which makes them more expensive and less accessible to purchase.

of CREATORS

Aspiring artists are struggling with promoting their work and reaching wider audiences.

BRIEF QUESTIONS

How to make artworks of

well-established creators affordable and accessible?

How to help new artist expose their work to wider audiences?

SOLUTION

A digital platform where by creating designs for playing cards aspiring artists could get exposure and established artists make their artworks more affordable to wider audiences.

AUDIENCE:

CONSUMERS:

All age groups due to the universality of cards as they are used from very young to old people.
Anyone who is interested in purchasing either a specific artist’s work or playing cards, or both.

Key Demographics

Gender: all

Location: all around the world

CREATORS:

Artists from various creative fields.
Aspiring artists that want to showcase their work and get exposure.
Established artists who are interested in making their works more affordable and accessible to the wider public.

Key Demographics

Gender: all

Location: all around the world

The rationale for using playing cards

Playing cards are rather cheap and easy to produce.

Cards provide an unconventional opportunity for artists to showcase their creative abilities.

Unlike prints, cards have more versatility in terms of use.

Having decks with different designs from the various artists would create an incentive for collecting them.

By using playing card artist get exposure not only on our digital platform but also in real life when playing with other people.

MISSION & VISION statements

MISSION

statement

This community-based platform is focused on bringing artists and art lovers together. Our purpose is to use playing cards as a medium to showcase aspiring artist works as well as to make the works of established artists more affordable.

VISION

statement

We stand for making art multi-use by turning it into playing cards rather than making it an unmovable piece. Moreover, we aim at making the art of established artists more affordable and providing exposure for aspiring artists.

TONE OF VOICE

Seriousness and respectfulness over humour as a way to build trust with the bigger artists, but keeping it casual and enthusiastic to create a friendly environment so starting out artists wouldn’t feel intimidated to submit their work. This kind of tone of voice would also be inviting to people who would discover the platform on social media, increasing the chances of them choosing to follow and interact with the account.

HUMOUR

FORMALITY

Funny

Serious

Casual

Formal

RESPECT

ENTHUSIASM

Sassy

Respectful

Enthusiastic

Matter-of-fact

Main functions of card selling sites:

options to narrow down the search by selecting the category of cards;
neatly displaced cards with prices below them;
few more images of the individual cards and a short description once clicked on the card deck;
further shopping details

The Art of Playing Cards tells the tales of the most iconic playing cards and reimagines how they could have looked if the traditional card had been styled at the height of another artistic movement.

INSIGHTS

The idea of “The Art of Playing Cards” of putting artworks of various artists and therefore making cards stylised is close to the idea of the “Deck of Art”.

The difference between it and the “Deck of Art” platform is that on the latter there would be a mixture of both aspiring and established artists' designs and not only the well know artists' works used as it is in the case of “The Art of Playing Cards”.

Playing Arts is a collective art project where designers and illustrators from all over the world express their vision of an ordinary playing card using personal styles, techniques, and imagination.

INSIGHTS

Similarities:

The idea of this website is similar to the idea of “Deck of art” in a way that cards are used as a medium to showcase works of various artists.

Differences:

On this website, each deck consists of 55 designs of selected artists. Each of them has one card to showcase their individual style. The “Deck of art”, on the other hand, would be a platform where each deck would be dedicated to one artist and only a few special decks would be a selection of different works from various artists.

Even though, the deck of cards features various artists, quite a substantial amount of works are by design studios and already established artists that have the exposure already and have been in a creative field for quite some time.

MARKET RESEARCH:

Research goal: define key principles of card selling sites, consider which functions of them would and wouldn’t be applicable to the "Deck of Art" platform and how it would differ from them.

FUNCTIONS &
GOALS

WEBSITE

Online shop
Sign up/log in
A place to submit designs
Provide info about artists
Contacting

INSTAGRAM

Promo
Voting on submitted designs
Showcasing card designs
Reposting people's experiences of buying cards, submitting designs, etc.
Creating community
Contacting

I identified the main points of user flows for two targeted groups: consumers and creators. I presented these flows in diagrams to show what the user journey would look like for each group: from discovering the website, visiting it and the endpoints of the journey.

USER FLOW

The logo symbol features all four card suit symbols. It is clear, versatile and quite minimalistic but at the same time eye-catching which is perfect for both the web page and use in social media.

Primary Logo

The main logo for the website header, business cards, marketing materials, etc.

Submark

The simplified version of the logo that consist of only the typographical element.

Brand element/icon

Taken from the primary logo this can be used on its own as a brand element for social media icon, business cards, patterns and other places where subtle branding is needed.