Pocket Aces Playing Cards Are Raising The Steaks

Kambiz Ahmadi has designed Pocket Aces Playing Card as the inaugural product for the luxury gaming wares company, Pocket Aces. The cards are packaged in the most minimal and sleek black box with an oversized X on the front. The brand thoughtfully left off the logo, intending to highlight the absence of the brand. The cards' gilded edges match the foil on the packaging, elevating both the product and the packaging experience. As with a poker game, excellent package design takes courage, focus, and a mind that thinks outside the box; Kambiz clearly has all three based on this deck of cards.

Pocket Aces Playing Cards are the inaugural product from Pocket Aces, a luxury gaming wares company based in California.

This minimal deck of cards along with the overarching brand identity were developed in tandem - with the packaging playing the important role of testing our ideas around brand and how it plays into the product experience. The oversized X on the front and back of the tuck case is meant to act as a placeholder for where a brand’s identity typically would go. While we use the X to represent ourselves, it is really meant to highlight the absence of a brand. We aspire to have our products become the totality of the experience through the thoughtful use of color, materiality, and a pared back graphic aesthetic that celebrates the smallest material details.

To that end, our packaging features a deep Navy solid card stock with soft touch lamination that feels like rose petals to the touch. Every surface of the packaging displays a singular piece of information in copper foil adding a contrasting reflectivity to the deeply matte card stock.

This contrast is highlighted further once the packaging is opened and the playing cards are revealed. The deck features copper gilded edges matching the copper foil on the packaging, extending the packaging experience further. We do not see the packaging as a separate entity that is left behind, we feel that it is an integral part of the product and experience.

The card backs are also adorned in copper foil employing the X featured on the packaging faces in a curated pattern we like to call the “Pocket Hatch”. Much like its use on the packaging, these X’s are meant to highlight where ornate artwork typically would go.

The playable card faces utilize the same materiality with carefully designed Pips and Indices in copper foil, set against a deep navy background, wholly inspired by the packaging.

The Navy / Copper edition of these cards will be available for purchase starting April 27th, with the Navy / Fuchsia and Navy / Silver editions becoming available shortly thereafter.