Kickstarter: Magician Mahdi Gilbert Launches Hidden Leaves Playing Cards

A year in the making, magician Mahdi Gilbert's Hidden Leaves Playing Cards has finally launched on Kickstarter. The deck was originally teased on Kardify last year, with a first look of the courts, Ace of Spades and Joker. The meticulously crafted deck is inspired by and a homage to the legendary card artist who in 1885 designed cards for Andrew Dougherty including Tally-Ho.

Hidden Leaves features a nostalgic feel. Inks on playing cards used to be pressed onto the uncut sheets one color at a time resulting in every single deck looking completely unique due to the discrepancies and bleeding of the ink. Mahdi decided to recreate this vintage aesthetic by making everything purposely imperfect.

According to Mahdi on the project page,

Printers used to use different plates for individual colors and to save money they would limit themselves to only two colors, red and black for the faces. I fell in love with this style, using your restrictions and limitations to create more powerful art. 

The artwork on this project has taken Mahdi almost a whole year to complete.

I had to figure out every single detail from the symmetrical pattern on the back inspired by William Morris to the Pantone colors used to print.

The face cards feature no indexes just like playing cards used to be made. This unique feature allows magicians to explore all sorts of forgotten card transformations, hypnotize audiences with hallucinations of duplicates and renders well-known prearranged stacks completely invisible.

Hidden Leaves Playing Cards will be printed to the highest quality possible by the United States Playing Card Company. The cards are made from the same Premium Bee Stock used in world class casinos for durability and flexibility. This premium stock has been Crushed Thin so that they can be used for superior and fine card manipulation by card experts worldwide. Pledge starts at CAD$20 (~USD$15) on Kickstarter.