VIZAĜO – A Creative Roadmap

The journey from first idea to a finished deck of playing cards takes many winding turns and side-tracks.
This page illustrates stages involved in creating VIZAĜO Playing Cards, from sketches to launch, including tools and materials, along with statistics (not that I’m a numbers person, though I thought it was fun to keep track of a few oddities along the way) and… a little background about the journey before creating this deck and what inspires me.

Creating a deck of cards

VIZAĜO has a connection with the teapots mugs and bows I used to make from clay. Through a long process of drawing, developing and refining the artwork, the whimsical faces made the transition from clay to a deck of cards. The artwork style is influenced by traditional line-drawing & wood-cut techniques with bold lines and segmented planes of colour.

From idea to finished design

This deck is a labour of love involving countless hours. Pencils, ink pens, & plenty of paper, along with my trusted drawing tablet have all been part of bringing the characters to life.

Teapot and playing cards on table by Abolina Art

Tools and materials used to create VIZAĜO

Connected through colour

I chose a different colour palette for each suit in VIZAĜO to emphasise the symbolic difference between the suits: Hearts – love and emotion, Clubs – inspiration and fire, Diamonds – prosperity and earth, Spades – wisdom and air.

Colours shared and accentuated between the different suits allows your eye to move across the cards and visually connect the deck as a whole.

While both colour versions – Lumina ( red) and Lumino (blue) – have identical faces, a creative play on light and dark allows the card back and box design for each version to shine.

VIZAGO Kings Queens and Jacks