For a while now I’ve had an idea stuck in my head for a playing card/gaff card designing program. I figure one of the first steps would be to establish some preliminary card pips. In the meantime, I have created a page called “Playing Card Pips” for those that would like to use them accordingly. You can either visit the page and get them one by one or download them all in one zip.
Page: playing-card-pips
File: pips.zip
I recently came across an excellent post from the Russian entertainment blog, englishrussia.com. The post contains about 13 very interesting playing card scans from the Soviet era of Russia. Acording to EnglishRussia’s article, Mayan motives were quite popular during the era and the only vendor for playing cards, and most other products was the Soviet State, hence these awesome playing cards. I got my first dose of Mayan culture about 6 or so years ago from a “workshop” I attended at a music festival for the band STS9. Someone asked the band if they followed the Mayan calendar. The band’s reply was ultimately “yes” however they also briefly explained the correlation between the Mayan Calendar, time, and sound in which the Mayans concept of time was quite different than most modern societies. From what I understand, the Mayans believed in an ever changing present moment rather than the linear (a to b) time-line most are accustomed to these days due to fast pace society. The Mayans followed a lunar cycled calendar in which the moon orbits the earth once every 28 days and 13 times a year. Every day is associated with a particular tone as are objects in reality, for instance the earth. The band went on to explain that they craft their music around these concepts, which is probably why they totally blow my mind every time I see them perform. Needless to say, the Mayan culture in itself is quite magical and I wouldn’t be surprised if these cards somehow represent these amazing concepts.
You know that round here at Phatus Magic we are all about saving you more time in your creations. From printing 6 gaffs at once to easier methods of creation. Here is one more spice on the rack to assist you should you share that same philosophy. A full set of 52 Playing card scans so you will never have to waste anymore time trying to scan in your cards for gaffs. The following are 2.5″x3.5″ scans at 200 dpi.
Enjoy!
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How To Make Gaff Cards
(By Phatus Magic)
