Primary Research - Collectible Cards

Something I have collected since childhood is trading cards. When I was little I had a lot of football cards, and so did my dad in the 60s and 70s - it's a format that seems to never get old. I remember going toW H Smith to get Dr Who cards and Top Trumps too, and it's a kind of warm feeling to have these memories, so I want to explore cards further in this project. I have scanned some collectible cards that I have at home and I want to use them as inspiration for my own set of nostalgic cards.

'Drop Dead' cards

Drop Dead is a British clothing brand who create fictional, anime style characters to market different series of clothes and add a sense of narrative, and when I bought some items from them recently it came with a couple of their trading cards for free. What I observed about these cards is that the artwork fills the entire space, while the additional information, like statistics, is minimised so that the characters are the assertive focal point. Some elements of the designs are a reflective silver, indicating high production value, but I think that is already established by the quality of the digital artwork. I really like the motifs printed on the envelopes because it made me feel excited and intrigued to open them - this shows the importance of branding, so I would like to use envelopes for my own cards with a stamp if possible.

Animal Crossing Amiibo Cards

Throughout my life I have been really into Nintendo and gaming, and in more recent years the technology has become much more sophisticated. I collect these Amiibo Cards for the game 'Animal Crossing', and they are unlike any other trading card because they contain software; it is compatible with certain Nintendo consoles, allowing you to scan them and unlock characters and features. This means they have much higher value than my Drop Dead cards, and I keep them in a folder to protect them. This image shows one sheet from my folder which I like to organise by colour because I find it really satisfying visually. Similarly to the Drop Dead cards, the characters consume most of the space and the information is minimal. I like the use of pattern in the background because it features motifs from the game , and the colour is strong and solid but not in a way that drowns out the characters. 

Pokemon Cards

Pokemon Cards have been around for a couple of decades and have played a major role in many peoples childhoods - they have created an enourmous community of fans across the world, who exchange and play with their collections - it's a really sociable thing and I would like my art to also engage people and create positive interactions. The cards are still really popular and I have my own collection of them. I chose a small selection to scan, which show the myriad styles that these cards can be found in - with the 'shiny' and 'rainbow' ones being most valuable. The characters are drawn by lots of different artists who use various media  - eg. pencil, yarn, 3D modelling - and I think this makes them more exciting to collect because there are so many more possibilities, reducing predictability. Because of this, I would like my card designs to be drawn using different materials. The 'shiny' cards that I included on the top row have artworks that fill the whole card, while the regular ones are contained in a rectangular window - this helps communicate the idea of extra value. Rarity is also a huge factor in the valuing of pokemon cards, with some fetching hundreds of pounds online; there have even been boxes of unopened, original cards from the early days of Pokemon sold at auction for thousands of dollars. Unfortunately, the selling of unopened packs has also created a cycle of gambling: the idea that there could be a super rare card in one means people buy them for extreme prices, but the dilemma is whether to open them and find out whether the cards are worth more or less than what you paid originally. I think this is quite a toxic aspect to collecting that I wouldn't want to be involved in.

Top Trumps

Top Trumps are a classic card game invented in 1978 by the same company (Dubreq) that created the iconic Stylophone. 

I still have several boxes of Top Trumps from my childhood, including this set of 'Littlest Pet Shop' cards. I used to collect these animal figures as a child using my pocket money and I find them incredibly nostalgic as they were my favourite thing for several years. The layout of the cards is an even balance of imagery and text, which is the best fit for the game as it requires you to read the numbers and compete for the highest score in order to win the opponent's card. The background is subtle and thematically relevant to the images and branding, and overall I really like the visual effect of these cards. What I can learn from them is that if the image is small it should have a background that it can stand forward against, while the prevalence of the text should relate to the purpose of the cards. I really like the idea of my cards having statistics in a Top Trumps style, it brings ideas of value into question; the fact that the Littlest Pet Shop cards have ratings like 'Cuteness', is a strange idea when I think about it because it's such a subjective thing, yet the numbers are presented as facts. I have to decide where I should bring my own voice into the ratings of my cards or if it would be better to get other peoples opinions and form a middle ground.

Cigarette Cards

Trading cards in cigarettes were initially made by tobacco manufactorers as a way to stiffen the packaging and advertise their brand - they were mostly made from the 1870s through to the 1940s. What I find really interesting about these cards is that they are like little time capsules; they document popular culture and offer insights into what the common interests were during that time period. Like many collectibles, they can be classified into several categories, such as actresses, sports, vehicles and wildlife. These cards are quite unique because they only have the artwork on the front, while all the information is on the back - they feel more educational and informative compared to my other cards which prioritise the entertainment aspect.

This is a photo I took in the Sue Ryder shop where they have a whole basket of vintage cigarette cards - I bought a few that I felt most drawn to, and although they don't give me any feelings of nostalgia, I know that my grandparents had them so my Mum and Dad would have memories associated with them. The cards are small and quite thin, so their worth isn't about material value but more based on condition and rarity.