Kickstarter: 7 Questions with Spaaaade&Co of Hundred Years' War Playing Cards

The Hundred Years' War Playing Cards is inspired by one of the longest war in history- a series of conflicts waged from 1337 to 1453, pitted the rulers of the Kingdom of England against the House of Valois for control of the French throne. Deeply inspired by the dramatic scale of the war, the team at Spaaaade&Co has decided to make a deck based on the historic events- every single element of the card designs have been carefully researched and verified.

The deck themselves have been delicately crafted. The Aces are designed using symbols and medieval motifs that represent each dynasty involved in the war and the Courts feature the major historic figures of the war, accentuated with detailed modern classic features.

We had a quick chat with Spaaaade&Co on their design background, the Hundred Years’ War Playing Cards and Kickstarter.

Can you tell us about yourself and what is your design background? 
Spaaaade&Co. is a small design studio consists of 6 people. Among us, Jeanne, Jack and I are interested in play culture. We’ve been enthusiastic about card games and various kinds of table games. It was natural for us to name our group as ‘Spaaaade’ when we started our company 3 years ago despite that we didn't have any plan to design playing cards at all.

We mostly do web design works for clients but we always had a desire to do self-initiated work. One day, our member Jeanne started cardistry and it was a real eye-opener. We began to collect decks in earnest and found out awesome projects on Kickstarter. Those campaigns encouraged us to dive in.

Hanuku, who collaborated with us, is a freelance illustrator. We fell in love with his amazing book and asked him to join our project. Luckily, he accepted with pleasure. 

Hundred Years’ War Playing Cards is your first Kickstarter Project. Why Kickstarter? Kickstarter is obviously a cool place to share ideas with and get feedback from a large community of backers. For small studios like us, it opens up so many possibilities. We didn’t have to give it a second thought because there weren’t services like Deckstarter or Cardlauncher yet when we came up with an idea of this project. 

Can you describe the Hundred Years’ War Playing Cards and why you’re passionate about it?
The deck is about a series of conflicts between England and France. We wanted to create a playing card deck, both beautiful and rich in content at the same time. Also, Joan of Arc has been one of our favorite characters. Her tough and dramatic life has been a popular material in cultural history. I’ve always dreamed about of making an art inspired by Joan of Arc and she was an obvious heroine of Hundred Years' War so naturally we picked it up as a theme.

How much time did you spend working on the deck? 
We began thinking about the project last December so we spent almost 6 months. The first part of the process was tracking down as much of the historic sources as I could. That was a number of weeks as it required to look at stories behind a century. And then we started with court cards. The main goal in making the courts was to describe the medieval costumes in detail so this took months. 

What was your most brilliant breakthroughs when designing the deck? 
Well, that's a tough question. We just had so much fun making the deck. We wanted to make something shiny and dignified in style—embossing, quality of the stock, metallic. This project was particularly enjoyable for us since we rarely do printed works, make something you can actually hold in your hands. 

What are your thoughts about the continuous strong growth of playing card projects on Kickstarter? 
I think it’s awesome. It just makes people more creative and gives the creator a job. Moreover, it is also amazing for collectors. The more the playing card community grows on crowdfunding platforms, the more diverse collectible cards can be. It’s a win-win all the way around. 

Finally, what are your favorite playing card decks? 
There are way too many decks that I admire, but if I was to pick some, I would obviously get a thrill out of holding decks like Artisans, Monarchs and Misc. Sherlock Holmes Series by Kings Wild Project and Pagan by USSI are also fantastic; the details and artistry in these decks are amazing.

Thank you for your time! Very elegant deck! :)


The Hundred Years’ War Playing Cards will be available in two editions: Gold and Silver Edition. These elegant deck will be printed by the USPCC. There is also a Collector's Box reward tier, which comes with the Gold and Silver edition deck along with a box, engraved with the SPAAAADE&Co. logo on top with black foiling. Excellent for both collection and as a gift!.

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