Examples of Black and White Playing Cards?

blue_fusion

Hi! Do any of you know of purely black and white playing cards (no reds or other colors) which also follow that "traditional" playing cards look (e.g. no wizards, witches, etc.)? I'd love to see samples of them! I am interested to see how the cards' creators (creatively) worked around the color scheme.

Thanks! :)

-Ly
 

Zephyros

Much of the Bicycle cards catalogue is in black and white. Look it up, their decks are gorgeous.
 

blue_fusion

frejasphere said:
I'd like to see some myself :) The Arcana Playing cards are 'almost' black and white, though there is red ... Added link even though they doesn't classify as B&W - the cards are gorgeous :)

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1894542039/arcana-playing-cards/description
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I misread the name of the Artist when I skimmed through the text of the deck's Kickstarter campaign page, and thought it was a new creation of Udovichenko who did a deck of pretty detailed images some years back ( http://www.tarotforum.net/showthread.php?t=122723 ), especially after seeing that tree in one of Arcana's cards.

The art also reminded me a bit of of Brian Partridge's, who did an exquisite series of black and white drawings for a set of rune cards, apparently over ten years ago ( http://www.aeclectic.net/tarot/cards/rune-linsell/ ).

Now I 'm really frustrated that I don't have their killer drawing skills! :D
 

blue_fusion

closrapexa said:
Much of the Bicycle cards catalogue is in black and white. Look it up, their decks are gorgeous.
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Do you mean that they print out their catalogs in black-and-white, but that some of those decks were actually done in color? I will try to look up more of their decks. We just have the standard Bicycle decks at home. :)

My main interest is how artists who did purely black and white decks executed their red suits (did they just color the diamonds and hearts black? etc).

-Ly
 

Metafizzypop

blue_fusion said:
My main interest is how artists who did purely black and white decks executed their red suits (did they just color the diamonds and hearts black? etc).
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I know of one case where they colored them white. You might want to take a look at the Bicycle Tiger deck. There's two versions of it actually. In one version the cards have a black background, and the traditional playing card artwork is done is white. All the pips are white -- spades, clubs, diamonds, hearts. The other version of the Tiger deck also has a black background, but only the black pips are white. The red pips are red.

They're cool decks. I don't have a handy link, but the Tiger decks are easy to find on Amazon and eBay.
 

frejasphere

Metafizzypop said:
I know of one case where they colored them white. You might want to take a look at the Bicycle Tiger deck. There's two versions of it actually. In one version the cards have a black background, and the traditional playing card artwork is done is white. All the pips are white -- spades, clubs, diamonds, hearts. The other version of the Tiger deck also has a black background, but only the black pips are white. The red pips are red.

They're cool decks. I don't have a handy link, but the Tiger decks are easy to find on Amazon and eBay.
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Wow... this is definitely a BLACK and white deck... especially in the image I found with the fan showing, well, pretty much mainly black (the details of card fronts don't show in the 'top-left-fan'):

http://playingcards.wdfiles.com/loc...:black-tiger/Black Tiger White.JPG/medium.jpg

I do like the 'negative' look of the court cards, even though I'm not a big fan of the (original) artwork...

... I have seen decks with black diamonds and hearts - and those that reverse the suit colours (so black (or even white, blue or other colour) hearts & diamonds / red spades & clubs)... For a purely black & white deck - I think it depends on the actual artwork/design. If there is a lot of detail (black ink) I think I would opt for all the suit symbols being black (on a white background), though I'm sure the reverse could work just as well, especially if the design is more minimalist :)

*wave*
 

Metafizzypop

frejasphere said:
Wow... this is definitely a BLACK and white deck...
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It sure is and it's part of the appeal. I like the black background. It's also kinda funny because all the Court cards look like X-rays.
 

frejasphere

Metafizzypop said:
It sure is and it's part of the appeal. I like the black background. It's also kinda funny because all the Court cards look like X-rays.
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That's what I meant by 'negative' - though X-ray sounds cooler ... :)
 
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