Thank you very much for your mail sinjin...it's seriously appreciated. Very very helpful.
I have checked out Julian Stiber on YouTube and some of the other cardists he has 'jammed' with on YouTube as well. I will try and PM him.
I'm very glad I decided to come on here. Speaking to people here who are experienced in all aspects of playing cards and viewing things from different angles.....cardists, magicians, collectors, designers.....each have different priorities with playing cards. Gathering the tips from all these angles will help us make this deck one of the best ever produced hopefully.
My only minor regret here in my posts was stating that our quality is 'second to none' (as pointed out by Magik too). USPCC and other manufacturers have done a fantastic job over the years achieving best handling, consistency in quality and also reductions in cost (through process optimisation and / or high production volumes). As you say, Bicycle set the bar on these factors, no doubt.
Over the last decade or so, hot foil printing on the backs of playing cards became the way to set your deck apart in the looks department and currently most of the 'high-end' / 'luxury' decks incorporate foil stamping somewhere. When aesthetic boundaries get pushed, the inevitable compromises occur in the handling. Over time these compromises are managed down to a point where most playing card users are happy. The industry is pretty much there now with the foil step.
I believe there is a fair chance now that VXD is the next big step in the industry. I do think it will revolutionise playing cards in the years to come. For years the backs have been getting the full pampered treatment and there's just one card back in the deck. Playing cards are really, in my humble opinion, 99% about the card fronts. This is where the action takes place and where people fix their eyes when playing all kinds of card games all over the world. I think the fronts deserve some real love in the looks department. I hope people appreciate that VXD was invented for this purpose. It should become clear.
We have worked tirelessly for 7/8 years now designing and testing ways to achieve the best result when combining the standard playing card production with our new VXD layer added into the mix. It has thrown up a whole new set of problems to tackle, hence the long long time spent in development (that and the patent process that ran alongside). I'm not going to say it will be perfect in the first ever release of this type of deck....but I can say, we are perfectionists and dedicated and are leaving no stone unturned to get it right...for cardists and magicians, for collectors who want to display it, casinos and their patrons, home poker players etc etc. I have given up my 15-year job as a professional bridge design engineer in the UK to tackle these playing cards on a technical level with the factories and my colleague is an exceptional graphic designer and artist, who is just about to go full time on the VXD project too and quit his day job for good too. We've spent every penny we have on it. We're 'all-in' to use a poker term.
While I would of course be very happy if the upcoming KS campaign was a success, it will actually have no effect on whether or how we pursue our ambitions and dreams with VXD. It will happen anyway...we just will be temporarily slowed down I think through lack of funds and the collectors edition would be put on hold temporarily until we found investment. I may talk more in depth re the casino side of the VXD project in future here, but this would certainly go on and is currently looking very promising.
Ok, big info / update post there....back to the job at hand now.
Thanks again sinjin for the contact info and the considered post
Please oh pretty please make a standard case.
