Philosophy Now Forum

Hello, everyone! I am new to the forums here, so I will start with a brief introduction. My name is Martin Pulido, and I am philosophy graduate who also happens to love card games (as well as board games). Card games not only illustrate philosophical ideas (War=Determinism), but many are also great practice in extrapolating what you don't know through what you do know from both cards played, cards in one's hand, and studying the decisions and faces of one's fellow players. I have recently wanted to get back into drawing and design, and so I created a project for myself: to create a deck of western philosophy themed playing cards that would be (1) aesthetically pleasing, (2) thought provoking, and (3) functional. An ambitious goal, but I think the decks could be lots of fun for philosophy and playing card enthusiasts, and to play with a group of friends.

Through much deliberation, I determined to organize the suits according to philosophical time periods: spades (ancient and medieval philosophers), diamonds (modern philosophers: 16th-18th c.), clubs (contemporary analytic philosophers: 19th - 21st c.), and hearts (contemporary continental philosophers: 19th - 21st c.). Each card suit also has a unique card face background, highlighting ideas taught by philosophers in the specified time period. These backgrounds are gray or a faint red on white depending on the suit, and I hope help in suit identification. I prefer the white backgrounds/borders as they limit damage from scuffing (or so I believe; maybe I am wrong?).

Each card contains a personally hand-drawn and then vectorized and digitally finished portrait of an important philosopher. I tried to find a famous depiction (if not the most famous) of the philosopher, regardless of the medium (sculpture, drawing, painting, photo, etc.) and then redraw it to have a more consistent look across the cards. Many design decisions were tough: I looked up in biographies to discover the hair color of many philosophers, but with ancient philosophers, I just had to arbitrarily decide. I also had to make decisions on clothing. Here is an example of the design process from the original famous depiction to the hand-drawn art, to the vectorized art, and the digitally-finished piece:



Since each card, versus just the royal court face cards, portrayed a specific philosopher, my initial design does not include pips. However, I have some alternatives that do include them, so your feedback would be appreciated. I recognize that for some not having pips will be a downer. 12-16 philosophers, however, didn't seem to cut it for the deck, so I had to make a call, which ended up being a lot more work for me! Maybe it was a bad decision.

The next step was to make the cards "thought provoking." I concluded to include a quote from each philosopher that wasn't loaded with jargon, so it could be understood by the layman. I also tried not to pick quotes that were (a) cliche, (b) made funny trite statements but said little philosophically, (c) made little sense out of context (Nietzsche's "God is dead" for instance), (d) ridiculed the philosopher by making his ideas appear impossible to understand (Heidegger's statement "The nothing itself nothings" is often used in this respect), or (e) were too religious (this deck is about philosophy, not theology or religious dogmas). On (e), I have no aversion to religion; I am a practicing Christian myself, so don't get the wrong idea. Anyway, getting the right quotes required lots of reading, careful selection, and revision.

Anyway, here are some samples of the art: 2 cards from each suit.






That should give you some idea of the style of the cards I have gone for and substantiate what I claimed about the design above.

For the tuckbox, I chose to recreate a section of Raphael's famous School of Athens piece. I kept Plato and Aristotle at the forefront of the piece, but replaced the figures around them in Raphael's version with philosophers from later eras (Bertrand Russell, Immanuel Kant, Ludwig Wittgenstein, Friedrich Nietzsche, etc.). I think the piece turned out quite nice, but the artist is usually biased! Here is a crude mockup of the tuckbox:



As for the backs, the tuckbox shows how I have created a vertical symmetrical back based on the famous flammarion engraving of a man grasping the universe as it is in its reality instead of in its appearance (or at least this is one interpretation of how the engraving has been used). I think it has turned out nicely too:



So on to my feedback questions:

(1) What do you think of the overall design? Do I succeed at making the deck aesthetically pleasing, thought provoking, and functional? While I had to make definite trade offs between those different goals, is it overall satisfactory? What suggestions would you make that align with those goals?

(2) Would any of you be interested in a deck if I tried to create a kickstarter project? What would be a fair price range for a deck (the low range being what you would be enthusiastic about and the high range being what you would still think is fair)? I don't want to start such a project if there isn't the interest...

Hello there!

I must admit that I really like it.

Yes. It seems very functional indeed and rather aesthetically pleasing too. You have succeeded in creating a consistent look that works very well. As for thought provoking, that mostly depends on the quotes chosen, I suppose.

I think you might be disappointed with the commercial viability of your idea. It's just a fancy deck of cards, after all. It should be priced in the same range as other fancy decks, and I suppose it could be sold in book stores, novelty stores and of course stores that sell board games and such. Being interested in philosophy, I would probably buy it if I stumbled over it while browsing and the price wasn't too exorbitant.

The problem is that it's just a deck of regular playing cards designed with a philosophical theme. A new card game somehow based upon philosophy would be much more interesting. Something like this: http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/8222/spank-the-monkey but with a philosophical twist. That would get me really excited.

who gets to be the jokers? perhaps a couple of the pre-socratics immersed in the flux?

cool idea though...

playing solitare with a deck of solipsists...

-Imp

Hey all, sorry it took so long to get back to you. Just got back from the boonies for a family reunion.

First, let me share a new minimalist design (one with name on the side and another in the background):



These lack the quotes, but do contain a short list of notable ideas. Perhaps simplicity is better in this case? What do you think?

Now for individual responses.

@Notvacka: Glad to hear that spanking a monkey gets you excited.

Yeah, definitely wasn't expecting to be made rich off of any commercial success. Just trying to see if it would fund itself. I can make a deck for myself for very cheap, but I would like to share it with others if I can just cover the cost of production. If I do a run of 2500, I could probably sell them for around $9-$11 a deck to cover the cost. Does that seem fair? I understand why you would want a unique game centered around philosophy; I was more interested in creating a philosophy theme for a game system to appeal to a wider audience.

@Impenitent: As for your jokers question, I chose not to include philosophers but to use skeptical thought experiments from philosophy. The first is Descartes' Evil Demon (or evil genie). The second is a modern variation on this, that of the "brain in a vat," where all of our experience of reality is governed by a super computer programmed by a mad scientist. I thought these would be appropriate sense the jokers warp the game, skewing reality. The art on them is still tentative and needs some improvement. Here is a draft of them:



Oh, and loved the solipsist comment.

I much prefer your previous design. If it ain't broke, don't fix it.

Yes, that seems fair.

Very good choice of jokers too. The evil demon needs some work visually, though. It's looks like a deranged dark elf from Morrowind.

@Notvacka: thanks again for the feedback. I have only been doing the changes due to opinions on other forums. Which leads me to...

Wanting to start a poll. I wanted to get votes on the best overall design for the card fronts since I have been getting feedback. I have nine designs below for you to choose from, some one way and others two way. I have already whittled down the designs based on feedback I have gotten from the playing card and philosophy communities. Thanks!





I would greatly appreciate it if:

(1) You listed the number you liked most (ie, 7).
(2) You stated whether you would buy a deck (this helps me prioritize the results; i definitely take all under consideration--as should be apparent by now--but I should cater more to those actually interested in getting a deck).

Allright.

(1) I like seven most because it's the cleanest design. If you must have a symmetrical design, it should involve both philosopher and quote, as in example two. I aslo think that you should avoid clutter. Anybody even remotely interested in this deck can read numbers, so there is no need for spades to count.

(2) I would by a deck if I happened to see it in a shop, but I wouldn't bother to order one.

Well, it is pretty obvious at this time that the one way art design is preferred, since it is by a definite majority (75% of those polled). Looks like I got it right from the outset. Preferences are pretty evenly divided between #7 and #8. If #8 is chosen, many people suggest 2 quotes. I will probably end up with 2 paraphrased statements instead, but I honestly don't mind that. I think I am leaning in that direction.

Now that the design is fairly decided, I still have some questions on the court cards and aces, and how to make them unique. For the aces I was thinking I could inscribe the art within the suits, in something like this:



I could of course make them slightly more ornate, but my cards might be complicated enough at this point.

As for the court cards, I think I could add a border, either just on the top and bottom, or all around. The border could try to contain classic card elements, such as having the Jacks border have spears/halberds, king having swords, and queens having flowers. The suit could also be in the border. Any other ideas come to your mind?

Yes. It's rather common in creative endeavours to sap the life out of a good idea by overworking it. I prefer the bottom row of aces, by the way.

I prefer the top row. Cleaner design and outlines. Bottom row some of the detail gets lost.

Impressive designs. Love it.

EIGHT is the best.
Having eight spades on the card is redundant if they are not in the normal configuration they do not help the use of the cards in practical terms.
The idea of a quote and image is what make the card so having it wrought large is a good idea.
Have you considered dividing the suits amongst schools of thought. Materialists/ idealists, logicians against existentialists?

I think the outside of the box is a little bit too TAROT.

Themed courts?
For court cards you might consider. ACE socrates, King Plato, Jack Aristotle, and Hypatia of Alexandria for the Queen in one set and maybe the Kant Hume and Locke for another suit Finding enough women might be tricky for the queens in following this scheme.

Chaz...meh. A quick search on wikipedias http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_fe ... ilosophers gives you a bunch of results.

First out is of course Simone de Beauvoir, she is kind-off the heavy-lifter in female philosophy, then you have some scattered ones, with varying degrees of influence. A quick search brought me to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margaret_Cavendish and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G._E._M._Anscombe, both seeming interesting, but not necessarily major philosophers, since that spot unfortunately is mostly reserved for men.