Year 2000 Tarock

We discussed in our last post how we have recreated Timon Schroeter's Emblematic Cards as a 500 deck, using fashion prints.

We also used the pattern to take another look at the tradional tarock packs, re-examining the rationale behind the popular Johann Nejedly design in use around the world. His Atout (trump) cards represent scenes of life of an ancient modernity, of Industrie und Glück (industry and happiness) from his own time. On the Roman Numeral numbered cards, one side had a picture of society at work, the other at play.

Rather than update the imagery, we thought a nicer idea would be to imagine our times from the prospect of his. We used the cards commisioned by Armand Gervais, a French toy manufacturer in Lyon, from Jean-Marc Côté, an established lithograph printer, for the 1900 World exhibition in Paris. So we redrew the images, and infilled to fit the new format.

Here are the Atout cards:

As the set featured so much underwater life (presumably because of the success of Jules Verne's classic novel) we decided to make half the cards aerial and terrestrial, and we have given the other half over to the life aquatic. Here are some close-ups:

Ah well, I know we have antibiotics, orthopaedics, mobile phones and social networking, but that other present does look quite fun.

We made double headed cards out of a traditional design, and have added valets and cavaliers for extended game play. We've also made them 4-index cards, at the request of a number of left-handed friends.

Here is the full non-Atout card set. You will notice an additional design feature. We have explored the two traditions of laying out the pips on the spot cards, to reflect the double-tradition of Schroeter's work.

We've got a friendly fool card made from the original set, given him a marotte and also made him double-headed:

If you want to play with a pack of cards from another present era, you can buy them printed-on-demand at Make Playing Cards here.