Cardistry: 3 Questions with Julio Ribera of the Juggler Deck

[Update] The Juggler deck is now LIVE on Kickstarter!

The Juggler deck is a cardistry deck crowd-funding soon on Kickstarter. Designed by Julio Ribera, a design student, magician and cardist from Spain, the fully custom deck was been created to maximize flourishes with its striking diagonal line and a light blue circle in the middle.

5 years ago, Julio started doing magic and cardistry about 3 years. Today, Julio has one of the biggest magic/cardistry YouTube channel in all South America and Spain. We had a quick chat to Julio about the inspiration behind the Juggler deck, the community, and his favorite flourish and deck.

What is your inspiration behind the Juggler deck? How did you come up with the idea?
The Juggler deck wasn't the first idea I had. As a designer and cardist, I've been trying to design my own perfect deck of cards for a long time, about three years or more. Two years ago I had the first design which I actually liked (attach photo). Although it was a cool design, I wasn't looking for that, I was looking for an "if you were stranded on an island" deck.

For me, that old design was more for a collectible deck than for a deck I would enjoy using every single day. For this reason, I continued trying different things until I finally got it. The Juggler design has been created to maximize your flourishes with its diagonal line and its circle with light blue in the middle. At the same time, it's not a weird looking deck so it can be used for magic tricks without being distractive.

The initial inspiration for the back design was my initials "JR", which stand for "Julio Ribera". From there it went to the same "JR" but this time standing for "JuggleR". This was because I didn't want to create the "Julio Ribera" deck, I wanted to create a deck for everyone that also had a special meaning for me.

We first saw the Juggler deck on Instagram. What do you think of the cardistry community in terms of the feedback and support that you’ve been getting so far on the social media platform?
Social media is awesome. You can show your work to the community and get instant feedback from your followers. With my deck, the feedback has been unbelievable. I created the @jugglercards account about 6 months ago when I received the first final Juggler prototype back in October 2016. Since then, I've reached around 2.500 followers and my photos have around 400-500 likes.

I've also received hundreds of DM about this deck trough my main account (@jriberamagia) and my deck account (@jugglercards). That is why I'm very confident about this project because our awesome community supports it. For this reason, I have to say Thank you to everyone reading this article and Thank you to our whole community, without you this couldn't be possible. You are so thankful and talented.

Finally, what are your favorite flourish and playing card decks?
My favorite flourish is "Delta" which is created by me and was featured in @BestCardistAlive. If you ask for my favorite non-original flourish, then I'll have to say "Nimbus by Chase Duncan".

About my favorite deck: Tally-hos Circle Back for sure. For me (as 99% of people that know about cards) they have the best finish ever created. That is why I decided to use their finish in the Juggler Playing Cards, so when they get printed they will become my favorite deck of cards.

[Update] The Juggler deck is now LIVE on Kickstarter!

Thanks Julio and all the best! The Juggler deck will be available on the 9th of May on Kickstarter. It will be printed by USPCC with the same stock and finish as the Tally-ho's.