How can a stylized card deck also remain user friendly?

That’s where Olympus Playing Cards come in. Inspired by my love and fascination with ancient Greece, this fully developed deck brings the essence of Ancient Greek mythology to life while still nodding to the common playing cues users need to enjoy a game.

Which themes best lend themselves to the structure of and elements in a deck of playing cards?

After taking a day or two to write down ideas, I began weeding through my concepts. The next step was to research the visual style of the era, which I did both online and through local museum trips. It became clear that the ancient Greeks already had a strong artistic style, full of geometric patterns, rough edges, and outline illustrations. I began to develop different visualizations of the illustrations, suit design, and overall card structure.

The Logo

As the residence to a majority of the gods and goddesses of Ancient Greece, Mount Olympus served as the bedrock to Ancient Greek Religion. It’s all-encompassing nature is what lends it to being an effective title reflective of the entire deck. The final design is set in Brothers OT Regular.

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 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 immediate user play. The tile base of each illustration is an abstracted representation of the card’s numerical value, helping subconsciously reinforce the card’s value. Each card is also reversible, allowing for smooth gameplay no matter how a card gets tossed down.

The Suits in Action

While not always conventional, the suits and numbers are placed in all four corners to create a more accessible experience for left handed users. Due to the natural way we fan cards in our hand, suits placed only on the top right and bottom left corners become hidden when left handed users hold them. By making this simple adjustment, users don’t have to adjust their natural tendencies to enjoy the game.

The Classes

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 Joker

A deck isn’t complete without two joker cards. The Minotaur is a mythical Grecian creature with the head and tale of a bull and the body of a man. While it was typically feared by humankind, it is no match to the immortals of Mount Olympus, making it quite comical in comparison.