This is a pack of cards that come out of an alternative history, where there is a fusion of the Swiss and Saxon patterns, resulting in only plant iconography. The idea is that a possible path in the evolution of card pack design could be to grow the number of cards, and have fewer suits. There is a precedent: the Liechtenstein pattern adds the Swiss Shields suit to the Latin pattern (Cups, Coins, Sticks and Swords), and some have two lower courts (Knight and Squire). Drawing

We mentioned in an earlier posting that we have been pursuing completions of the Germanic and Swiss pattern cards, to enable international games to be played in traditional card iconography. In this post we will discuss our Swiss Whist set. We did several things: we added an Ace, a 3,4 and 5 spot, made the common cards double-headed and added index markers. We kept the traditional court design because of the iconography of the Unter and Ober. The Unter figures hold the pip sy

While the French pattern became simplified and became the international convention for playing card design, the Germanic traditional patterns have by and large stayed with their ornate and symbolically rich designs. This means that making a full set of 52 cards for playing Whist and Poker required the addition of new designed cards: An Ace, and lower rank cards 3,4, and 5. German and Swiss cards are usually single-headed, we have made them double-headed, and added index marke

This is our completion of a set of cards prefigured by El Lissitzky (1890-1941) in a series of collage paintings from the 1920s:...

My brother was recently on East Falkland, and so this seemed an auspicious reason to begin our blog with a game that was actually...