Kickstarter: 7 Questions with Manoj Kaushal of the Classic Playing Cards

The Classic Playing Cards are created by Manoj Kaushal and his team at 9780 Design. This meticulously crafted deck are aged to elegance with its beautiful vintage design. The court cards are unique in that rather than the traditional courts, these cards are represented by the kings, queens, and princes, each with their own traits. The Classic features illustrated custom Faces, Ace, Jokers, Tuck and an intricately beautiful back design, which is both aesthetically and sentimentally appealing.

Earlier this week, we caught up with Manoj to talk about his design background, 9780 Design, the inspiration behind the Classic deck and the design evolution of the deck.

For those of us who don’t know, tell us a little about yourself and 9780 Design.
Hi, My name is Manoj. I am the owner and creative director at 9780 design. Our studio is a small knitted agency with handful of people who have 2 passions in life... Magic & Designing. We have been actively associated, for over 15 years now, with various brands in magic fraternity to look after their creative needs for their projects.

Then couple of years back we had an opportunity to work on a deck of cards. The whole experience was amazingly decorated and we immediately fell in love with this genre. From one card to two to three and we ended up designing around 6 playing cards. Grimoire, venom, venom strike, Dr. Jekyll and Hyde and Majestic Playing Cards are some of our past designs.

Since the first day we always wanted to do a playing card project for ourselves BUT other projects kept us busy but atlast we made it happen.

This is your first playing card project on Kickstarter. Why Kickstarter?
Technically, yes! Before this we had done a kickstarter project for Elite Playing Cards and were the design source behind "Majestic" but nothing more than that.

Kickstarter was an obvious choice because it is the most popular platform for playing card crowdfunding (would like to assume) and card collectors around the world have the site in their bookmarks. There is a reason why it ranks 363rd globally and 190th in USA popularity wise (according to Alexa's competitive intelligence).

What is your inspiration behind the Classic Bicycle Playing Cards? How did you guys come up with the idea?
Classic is vintage and vintage is timeless. We have always been fascinated by vintage style and were always sure that if we ever did a kickstarter then it would definitely be vintage.

"Classic Playing Cards-Blue Edition" is an answer to one question?
 How your bicycle deck would have looked couple of centuries back?

Hauled from past, "The Classic Playing Cards-Blue Edition" are aged to elegance. Wrapped in the vintage design, these cards are for card collectors and card workers who crave all. We took the elements from the vintage time period, added a modern brush to it and born was a "Classic".

How much time do you spend working on the deck?
The thought process was there for a very long time BUT it took us approximately 5-6 months to wrap it up. The "Classic" has gone through a series of creative blocks, frustration, hustle, detail, research and at the end... pride.

Walk us through the process you took to design this unique deck. How did you get to this finished product and how did you get feedback?
Like we mentioned earlier. We were always sure about the vintage theme for our deck. From there it was mostly research. We looked into fonts, elements and color to bring out the classic feel.

Every element of the design was chosen and placed had a thought behind it. If you check vintage packaging, you will notice how they used to have a very simple image at front to pronounce the product or the logo partnering with the evergreen vintage fonts surrounded by a bit complex borders. We replicated the same process for our tuck case and that's how we came up with the simple image of old style BiCycle and vintage font at the front gate.

Press printed materials in yester years used to have that etching and engraving effect to them . If you look at our court cards you will see the same resemblance borrowed from that time era.

They don't look like an illustration from today's action novels but a printed chapter restored from the past. We took care of major part of the design BUT the real secret came out of the feedbacks from the community. Their incredible suggestions took this playing card design to a different level and made it what it is today... "Classic".

We first noticed the Classic on the forums. What do you think of the playing card community in terms of the feedback and support that you have been getting so far?
Forums were our only resort because we are new to this family. Every other players have become a giant and already have a great rapport with their collectors.

So obviously we are the underdogs and have to start from the scratch!

Playing card community has been a HUGE part of Classic Playing Cards. Everything embedded in the design is a result of the generous and critical suggestions made by this fraternity. Classic was first released in July but we had to cancel that attempt because we had huge feedback from playing card community who wanted to better this project. Right from design elements -to- goals -to- pledges -to- add-ons -to-shipping... everything is an extension of the advices made by the veterans! This project won't have evolved without them... PERIOD!

Finally, what are your favorite playing cards?
Apart from Majestic, Venom, venom strike, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde?
:)
I guess it would be 1800 series by Ellusionist and Karnivals.

Thank you Manoj and all the best! At the time of writing, the project is only 43% funded with 33 days to go. If want to support Classic Playing Cards, you can find it on Kickstarter here! 


Classic Playing Cards will be printed by the USPCC on their popular Air Cushion Finish card stock. Pledge starts from AUD$13 (~USD$9.5). There are multiple add-ons available such as uncut sheet, T-Shirt, wooden brick case  and 13"x20" sized poster. Also, there are multiple rewards that will be unlocked once the project hits their set stretched goals, most notable is the Classic White Edition at AUD$45k.