First Look at ARK's The Illusionist & After Sound Playing Cards

The Illusionist & After Sound Playing Cards by ARK will be launching on Kickstarter tomorrow! This incredible-looking set continues ARK’s mission of continuous Exploration and infinite Innovation. Half a year in the making, these playing cards sets are hand-illustrated with meticulous and intricate details.

ARK Playing Cards have built a fantasy theater for magic with unprecedented structure and design for the Illusionist playing cards. Seven individual pieces of cardboard are hand-assembled to form this masterpiece. According to the ARK,

This Playing Card design was inspired by Ansiktet (‘The Face’ also released as ‘The Magician’), a 1958 Swedish film centered around a traveling magician. The movie technology during that time was not as advanced as we know it now. People were curious and in awe of the fantastic things happening around then.

The entire design concept adopts a classical and luxurious visual style to restore the classic and mysterious art form of Magic. As such, the tuck box shape is modeled after the magic theater from the last century. When the box is unfolded, a three-dimensional magic theater stage will appear before your eyes, with the magician standing center stage, performing the famous ‘Sawing a lady/person in half’ illusion.

When closed, the artwork on the tuck box depicts a Western-style detached building, the performance poster at the entrance of the theater, the Illusionist signboard that can be seen from afar, the figure of the magician in the skylight on the top floor, the splendor of the window sill… presented with these countless details, one cannot help but imagine the crowded scene at the entrance of the theater where celebrities in gorgeous evening wear gather one after another before the show.

The illustrations on the entire deck of cards are very intricate and littered with fine details. The four Aces depict commonly seen magic props. Each court card depicts a different genre of classical magic.

Twelve magicians perform with different magic props, including the linking rings, doves/rabbits, card manipulation, ball manipulation, and so on.

The “Illusionist” series will be released in limited-edition box sets, with a total of four editions: Classic Boxset (Limited to 1500), Black Gold Boxset (Limited to 800), Luxury Leather Boxset (Limited to 500) and Deluxe Walnut Boxset (Limited to 300).

The second set of playing cards in the campaign is created around the themed Peking Opera, a quintessential national culture of China. According to ARK,

Toward the fourth quarter of 2020, when the idea was just conceived, we were full of awe to create a series of playing cards with such a grand theme. After pouring over the materials countless times, we thought deeply about how we were going to present each and every detail. We worked hard on the design, hoping to better introduce and integrate the breadth and depth of this traditional Chinese culture into 56 playing cards.

The 3D theater has been shrunk down in size to a playing card tuck box. When the front is in its closed and folded state, the card box has the appearance of a theater. When unfolded, the inner three levels pop open horizontally revealing and astounding the viewer with detailed illustrations of a three-dimensional stage.

Inside, the playing card design incorporates traditional elements, mainly from the Peking Opera. Over 15 months of preparation have resulted in these exquisite and detailed hand-painted illustrations. The back design of the playing card is an extension of the Opera stage found on the tuck box. A classic scene from the play is being enacted here.

Each illustration on the card is exquisite, and it is modeled after the classical characters that often appear in traditional Peking Opera plays with incredible details. The series will be released in the form of limited edition box sets only, with a total of four versions: Classic Boxset (Limited to 1500), Dark Flare Boxset (Limited to 800), Luxury Leather Boxset (Limited to 500), and Deluxe Walnut Boxset (limited to 300)

Don’t miss out! Pledge starts at $35 on Kickstarter.