This is a project I did for my History of Visual Communications class. The Project required that we design a playing card in the Art Nouveau or Art Deco style. I love are deco, so this wasn't much of a stretch for me to get into this project. Here is my entire project.
Cover Page
I drew the Seven of Clubs for the playing I card I was required to design; so the idea of a simple card that relied on interpretation to achieve the effect was my goal.
After some working sketches based off of visual cues from the Art Deco era, I decided upon a simple card that used geometric and futuristic shapes for the rear of the card, with a stately design of a woman representing the number seven.
Sketches 1
Sketches 2
Sketches 3
I have always enjoyed the artful fashion designs by Romain de Tirtoff, aka Erté. His smooth lines and long lean shapes have fascinated me for years. The simple design of the faces and hands lend themselves well to the streamlined affect of the Art Deco movement. I am also a fan of the color palettes that were employed by Charles-Édouard Jeanneret, aka Le Corbusier in his paintings. His well-developed color relationships drove the color palette I decided to use in my project.
I decided upon a color palette that used seven colors, including a rich black (60,40,40,100), 60% grey, cream white, brown, red, gold and teal to reflect a strong, earthy feel. The bold colors of the Art Deco movement laid out a nice strong palette to create with, and to develop a visually strong playing card.
I used no commercial typefaces, so I needed to be able to design a hand drawn number seven to use as the visual highlight of my design. The number seven was realized as a woman with Egyptian features and flow, as this was en-vogue during the Art Deco movement. The suit of clubs was created as a simple triad of circles that blends into slab serif finials. Hard corners were kept to a minimum, with all strokes being finished with ball corners.
I love the granular textures employed by the poster designers of the Art Deco era, so I used a strong grain effect for the face of my playing card. There is a quality of life theme within Art Deco that realizes the prosperous period of the post war years, and luxury was the ideal. Artful simplicity exudes luxury, so while my design may seem simple, this is what would have been normal during the early twentieth century.
The rear of the card features geometric shapes and circles. On a base of rich brown, I crafted a stroked rectangle in gold and laid out three diamonds of teal with a gold stroked border, red and black of diminishing width, yet as a juxtaposition of impact with the strongest color being in the center. I overlaid three circles of a bull’s-eye nature, with two of them in a lighter weight and size. This creates a nice visual effect in the overlay.
