Interview about Pattern Play Playing Cards Calendar, winner of the A' Graphics, Illustration and Visual Communication Design Award 2023
With Pattern Play!, the designer wants to create designs with bold colors and organic shapes to inject positivity and hope into people's daily life. The playing cards is made with 54 unique illustrations, 310 gsm black core card, matte cover finishes to provide a refreshing and special entertainment experience. 12 artworks are enlarged and paired with one-liners for each month to make the calendar. It is also designed to be posters to light up and energize home space. The team hopes these two beautiful non-standard products will inspire people with curious mind to find better ways of life.
View detailed images, specifications, and award details on A' Design Award & Competition website.
View Design DetailsLaunched at the end of 2022, this calendar welcomes the new year with a wish: whether you seek a kaleidoscopic life or aim to rewrite the rules, may you start with a good hand and a calendar that foreshadows good fortune.
Through constant experimentation and playful exploration of abstract, meaningful patterns, we reapproached the everyday with a renewed curiosity for beautiful living. Shaped by creativity and imagination, we created a textured and delightful surprise object. This time, by merging playing cards and a monthly calendar, we infused daily life with vivid color, sparking joy in the mundane and offering a poetic, aesthetic experience.
The material of the cards largely determines their durability. Beyond practical considerations, we also pay close attention to the color performance of spot printing, as color plays a crucial role in this project.
For this edition of PatternPlay, we created 54 unique illustrations—one for each card face. From these, 12 were carefully selected, enlarged with high precision, and printed using two specialty colors to accompany each month of the coming year. Thus, the PatternPlay 2023 calendar was born: a way to light up everyday scenery with art.
We hoped to break free from the usual design constraints, letting points, lines, shapes, and colors take center stage—drawing with intuition and unleashing boundless imagination. At the same time, we aimed for high quality, eye-catching aesthetics, and a solid conceptual brief. A good hand can play out in countless ways depending on who’s holding it—beyond gaming, it could also resemble tarot readings or home accents.
Each month features a witty “highlight phrase” as a hidden gem, curated by the editor to match the illustrated scenes or the cultural mood associated with that time of year.
Creativity often arises from everyday life—whether it’s the entryway we pass through each morning, the blank wall we glimpse before sleep, or the workspace where we seek focus and energy. In all these moments, life calls for the ritualistic spirit of creativity—something that can awaken vitality, soothe discouragement, and open up new possibilities.
Each card functions differently, inviting interpretation. Their vivid colors make them ideal as decorative objects, while the tarot-like dimension is built through visual cues—designed to encourage intuitive connections between color, shape, and meaning.
We prioritized durability and color performance in our research—selecting materials that last and spot colors that stay vibrant, as both texture and color are core to the calendar’s experience.
Launched in 2016, “Designing the Unknown” is a TOPYS initiative that reimagines the potential of everyday objects through experimental, forward-thinking design. This project showcases our bold approach to color and pattern, which has been warmly received by our audience. Moving forward, we plan to further explore these two elements in our future creations.
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