Here’s the last project to close out the work-year: Hospital playing cards!

Hospital and I had been talking about doing a deck of playing cards for a long time and I finally found a few free days to crack on with it in November, just in time to get them out for the holidays. The idea to do the King, Queen and Jack as Surgeon, Nurse and Physician came to me when we first talked about doing playing cards, so I started by drawing them up, and followed them with some more conventional number designs.

When we got the specs from the printer, I discovered there was space not just for two jokers but two extra cards too. I drew a Joker based loosely on Tony the CEO, then after a bit of scratching around I decided a bonus pair of turntables would be better than the rules of Bridge.

The last detail was the box, and I decided if there was ever a playing card package to pay homage to, it would be the magician’s favourite Bicycle.

They’ve turned out really cute – it’s nice to get ideas out of my head looking like I imagined them!