Kickstarter: 7 Questions with Sergio Roca of the Odyssey Playing Cards

Designed by Sergio Roca, Odyssey Playing Cards is an eye-catching deck inspired by the Orion's Nebula. The deck has been designed with cardists in mind. The vibrant nebula color palette accentuates card flourishes and displays, fanning, spins and cascades will look incredible!

Odyssey consists of 54 cards and features custom suits, aces, courts, 2 custom Jokers and a minimalistic tuck. The vibrant colour palette is consistent across the deck and the diagonal white stripe is prominently featured on the cards. This classy stripe will allow cardists to create and discover new shapes and enhancing displays for their card flourishes.

We caught up with Sergio and had a quick chat about his design background, inspiration and idea behind the Odyssey Playing Cards, design evolution of the deck and his thoughts about the support he has been getting from the cardistry community.

Can you tell us about yourself and what is your design background?
My name is Sergio Roca, I am 21, a student of Telecommunication Engineering. I live in Valencia, Spain and I am a magic and cardistry enthusiast. I have been doing Magic and Cardistry for almost 6 years now and I hope it lasts for much more to come. I am not a graphic designer but I have always loved drawing, photography and image editing. Because of this, I have been able to acquire and learn basic design techniques with which to carry out my deck designs.

What is your inspiration behind Odyssey Playing Cards?How did you come up with the idea?
I have always loved everything related to cosmology and astronomy. So when I decided to design my own deck, I started to investigate more in depth about the universe in which we live in, nebulas, galaxies, cosmic formations and everything in-between. I visited many astronomy websites as NASA, SEDS, Cybersky in order to make the best decisions according to color, thematic, shapes, and figures from the deck. And that's when I realized Orion’s nebula was the key.

How much time did you spend working on the deck?
This is a good question. I came up with the idea of making my own deck two years ago. However, my studies have not allowed me to dedicate myself entirely to this deck, which has caused many delays and living in Spain was another one of the major problems because of the high shipping fee, high customs taxes and the necessity of giving legal features to this project. Nevertheless, three months ago, I made the decision to speed up the project thanks to the help of great professionals like Hanson Chien or my aunt Nuria Martinez who have helped me a lot.

Talk to us a bit about going from the first draft to the final version. How did you get to this finished product?
I started working on the back which has gone through many colour and shape changes. Finally, I gave it a white diagonal stripe, which gives the cards symmetry, and that in my opinion is perfect to create displays. After I finished with the back, I started with the design for every cards face. It took some time but it is what you need if you want to create a very special deck. The first whole designed card was the queen, and from there I kept on with the rest of royalty following the thematic. At the same time, I was working on the first tuck box prototype which was horizontal like NOC v3, however, my intention was to find the best card case design so I set out to examine all possible alternatives and I realized that the classical vertical tuck box fits better.

I tried to show elegance and minimalism with some futuristic touches in every element of this deck and I think that the card case is the perfect example. Moreover, the hardest card to find the perfect design for was the “club”. But after countless math classes designing instead of trying to make out something my teacher said I came up with the ideal Club for the deck.

What was your most brilliant breakthrough when designing the deck? 
Well to be honest, I provided this deck with a lot of minor details, the jokers being really futuristic, the cards case which contrasts nicely with the card's back or the typography or the number “10” which is replaced by an “X”. Any of these details makes this deck really unique. Although, for me the most brilliant breakthrough was the Queen's design. I think that this card shows really well what I wanted to transmit, elegance and minimalism.

We first noticed Odyssey on Instagram. What do you think of the playing card community in terms of the feedback and support that you’ve been getting so far? 
Well, the magic and cardistry community is one of the best, no doubt about that. All of these wouldn't have happened if not for them and I've been receiving feedback from the first picture of the Odyssey Cards I posted. Every comment, new idea, advice or opinion I took it into account to improve my deck according to what cardists and magicians want. I have also received tons of support from the Spanish community on YouTube and Instagram and I am also very grateful for it.

Finally, what are your favourite playing cards?
I have been doing magic and cardistry for 6 years and my favourite deck of cards remains unchanged: Bee Wynn. It may be its finish, or maybe the paper stock, I don’t know what it is, but this deck has something special for me. Blue, purple or red, all sound good to me. I should get more of these. They are perfect!

Thank you for your time, Sergio and Congratulations on hitting the funding goal! At the time of writing, the project is already 117% funded with 19 days to go. If want to support the Odyssey Playing Cards, you can find it on Kickstarter here! 


Pledge starts from €12 (USD$13.50) and the deck will be printed by the Hanson Chien Production Co (HCPC).