Beautifully Modern Alice in Wonderland Playing Cards

I have a friend who somehow keeps getting into these situations where everyone believes she is obsessed with something she is not, so everyone buys her gifts on that theme. In middle school, it was Finding Nemo. Then it somehow turned into playing cards. Recently, as a joke, I brought her back a deck of cards featuring former leaders of China from my visit to Beijing.

But now I'm beginning to see why people might actually want to collect decks of cards.

Thanks to DeckStarter, kind of like Kickstarter for cards, playing cards have never been more beautiful. Like, so good looking you might now even want to play with them.

One of the most wonderful looking decks to hit DeckStarter so far is the Alice in Wonderland two-set pack from Turnstyle design studio.

Much of the design of the two-set pack is based on the idea of parallel worlds, a major part of Lewis Carroll's writing.  The decks inspired by the Art Nouveau and Art Deco eras, set in ornamental white, black and gold designs. And, of course, gold without foil stamping wouldn't be much fun at all, so the decks are graced with foil as well as embossing.

The deck even includes quotes from the Carroll's classic story, which is such a great touch.

My favorite part about this deck is the story of how it came to be. According to the studio's website, they donated their time and services to a local elementary school to help with the school's production of Alice in Wonderland. Awesome. Beyond the deck, they created a logo, playbill, cast t-shirts, posters and more.

At the time of posting, the pack had 240 backers and had raised about $9,000 of its $14k goal. Pretty impressive for a simple game. I think it speaks volumes to how much we value well designed things.

Also, double points for Turnstyle being a Seattle-based design firm. Love this city more and more every day.

You can support Turnstyle's Alice in Wonderland Design on DeckStarter, and read a review with designer Steven Watson (whose son was the Mad Hatter in the play) over on The Dieline.

(via The Dieline)