Once I landed on the 12 Greek gods and goddesses, the next step was to research the visual style of the era. It became clear after just one trip to a local museum that the ancient Greeks were very fond of geometric patterns, sharp edges, and outline illustrations, a visual style that drove a majority of my ideation.

Ideation and Sketches

Upon collecting my research, it became time to start putting pencil to paper. I began to develop different approaches to the illustrations, the suit design, and the overall card structure. After sitting with my ideations, I picked and pulled my favorite elements to create the final product you see below.

The Card

Merging both of my final visual directions, the card’s structure and elements take a modern twist on classic Grecian art while maintaining the key visual aids necessary for easy user play. The tile base of each illustration is an abstracted representation of the card’s numerical value. Each card is also reversible, allowing for smooth gameplay no matter how a card gets tossed down.

The Suits

Inspired by Grecian architecture, each suit is a modern reconstruction of a commonly used motif in ancient Greek buildings. Purposely simplistic in nature, I chose to unite the classically known shapes and colors of suits with the more stylized imagery of Ancient Greece for user ease. The suits and numbers are placed in all four corners to create a more accessible experience for left handed users.

The Classes

With card games often relying on a clear hierarchical structure between the number, face, and ace cards, I knew I needed to work within the framework I had created to differentiate between the classes. Since the number cards touted the God and Goddesses sacred objects, it only made sense to assign the face cards actual portraits. As for the ace, Mt. Olympus serves as home to the entire ancient Greek religious world and only seemed right for the master card.

The Final Deck