Playing with a Full Deck is a competition for the most creative re-imagining of the standard playing card deck.
The competition accompanies the Columbia University Libraries’ Rare Book & Manuscript Library exhibition, Mirror of Humanity: Seeing Ourselves in Playing Cards.
The Columbia University community is invited to create a new playing card design. The contest invites thinking across academic subject areas, while also encouraging play and creativity. Contestants are asked to think beyond typical boundaries when imagining the playing deck of today and the future.
This contest offers a first prize and a second prize for the most visually creative re-imagining of a playing card. Prizes include an iPad Pro, specialty card games and gaming passes from our contest co-sponsor and reception co-host, Hex & Co.
The deadline is Thursday, 31 October 2019 at 11:59pm.
Click through for entry details and contest rules. You’ll need a Gmail/Lion Mail/gBear account to enter and upload your artwork.
Mirror of Humanity: Seeing Ourselves in Playing Cards
August 26, 2019 – January 31, 2020
Kempner Gallery, Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Butler Library
Playing cards were once condemned as “the Devil’s picture book,” gaudy bits of pasteboard that encouraged sins such as time-wasting and gambling. Mirror of Humanity instead approaches playing cards as mirrors which retain images of past perceptions of ourselves and others.
Please join us on November 11th for a gallery tour of this exhibition, followed by a reception at Hex & Co., where we will announce the winner of a playing card design competition.