For many of us a standard deck of cards is the gateway game in which we are introduced to so many other games.  It is such an incredibly versatile “toy”.  Magicians can make your chosen card appear, psychics can tell your future, and grown men will wear sunglasses inside a building, at night, while they compete at Poker.  One way that playing cards are also incredibly attractive to many artists is strictly for their aesthetic properties.  Playing cards have visual designs on them.  Each brand and style of deck differs and changes how they look, and there are many artists behind those designs.

Image Source: Photo by Daniel Fleming

We have talked before about the relationship between video games, films, and board games.  How there are board games being made from video games and films, and obviously there are films like Dungeon’s and Dragons being made based off of a board game.  The television show community had a special Dungeons and Dragons episode.  The overlap between the video games and film industry with board games is evident, but the amount of artwork produced for these board games is not as obvious.

Magic the Gathering

The illustrations for Magic the Gathering cards are incredibly detailed and involve a lot of work by an artist. There are so many different categories of cards which can lead to many different types of illustrations.  Artifacts, enchantments, and creature cards, etc. demonstrate the variety of cards there are as well as the detail put into each.  Many digital artists will have commissions to illustrate Magic cards.

Image Source: wizards.com

Munchkin

The card game Munchkin also has an immense amount of artwork on each card, with cleverly thought up names and titles for each.  While the artwork for munchkin is not nearly as detailed and labor intensive, the artist John Kovalic has definitely found a niche with his loose comic style.  It may be more technically simple art, but it is all his art that illustrates every card and many times makes me laugh.  That is a lot of work, and you can tell that he thoroughly enjoys creating the work in his style.

Image Source: thehopelessgamer.blogspot.com

Standard Deck of Cards

While a standard deck of cards is the most well known and recognized system of cards, they also have the most consistencies between them.  Artistically speaking a 54 card deck of cards (two jokers) will only have separate illustrations for the royals and the jokers as well as obviously whatever the back of the cards look like.  Add in your standard suit symbols and that is what the standard tends to be at least.  I know there are many different kinds of playing cards you can buy, I myself learned about literary authors through a themed deck of playing cards as well as composers!  These cards had illustrations of the author or composers face on their corresponding set of numerals.  For instance, all of the Aces may be pieces of music all written by Johann Sebastian Bach.

Image Source: usagamesinc.com

I personally have many friends that I went to computer animation school with who now create illustrations for cards as a large part of, or all of their income.  As more artists enter the CG industries the roles for designing cards will get more competitive.  These pieces of paper that can build houses can also help artists hone their skills while also providing a good structure from which to create their own new artwork and even pay for their own houses.