Casa Tarjeta

Small projects can be as viable as large ones, especially when designers are experimental and develop new methodologies. As with everything, research—and the winding path it sometimes takes us on—is key. We discover inspiration via research. As the context of a project unfolds, precedent, implications and insinuations are revealed. So too the elegance of correlations that keep designs hyper-specific (or even idiosyncratic) to each client.

A friend in San Antonio requested a very small project: a single business card that used playing cards as an inspirational foundation. We discussed the potential for the misreading and an emergence of a gambling with your business motif, but all parties agreed this was probably a non-issue. Stripping the essence of a ‘playing card’ to its bare minimum—and doing a little research into precedent—allows the concept to be subtle and it’s relationship to the holder to emerge. It also has the added advantage of not forcing inappropriate components (like an actual jack with a sword, or a spade for an “A") into the design.

First, the history of playing card patterns is merely one of solving a technical problem: to curb cheating by creating a back to a card that is not easily marked. Second, the mirror text image: designed so that players don’t have to rotate cards, potentially giving away their hand.

We took the second motif at face value, but dug into the first. Pattern study in Mexican architecture led us to Spanish architecture which led us to the Alhambra and a recurring interest in the mathematical sequences inherent in the Moorish carving and pattern tradition found there. The non-recurring (or asymmetrical) patterns found in this type of work are also part of the Islamic tradition in general, using only words or patterns, but no narrative forms, to depict God or the Prophet. These motif’s influenced the Spanish artisans that followed the Moorish reign, and so by extension Mexican motifs (though subtle, to be sure). Note: research the history of acequias in San Antonio, and their technological root with the Moors.

We developed our own modern variation on this pattern and letter pressed it into soft cotton stock, inking the mirrored text on the back. The end result is delightful.

Creative Director: Jett Butler.
Design team: Jett Butler, Sarah Emmons, and Melissa Martin.
Letterpress by the master, Bradley Hutchinson.