Love Letter

This is a remake of a popular card game called Love Letter, a bluffing and deduction game in which players compete to deliver their letter to the princess. There are 8 characters and, coincidentally, 8 people in my friend group. Each card represents a person and their interests. This group has a few major interests in common, primarily board games. Each card was fully designed by myself as a quarantine surprise for my friends!

• Illustrator
• Designer

The idea for this project originated with the wedding of two of these friends- could I get this project out in time for their wedding? (The answer was no) Basically, the process was this: choose a person, define 2-5 interests that can be represented visually, and design the layout. The pseudo-symmetry of each card allows for careless shuffling and holding of cards. Because this deck was designed for players who are already familiar with the same, the explanation of powers could be left out of each card (printed on a reference cards given to each player).

There are 5 of the Guard's card in this game and only 1 or 2 of everyone else, so he was the ideal starting point. Brian is our most prolific board game player, as well as a USFA-rated fencer, so he was a natural choice for the Guard, whose power is to guess another person's hand.

Anna is highly observant and therefore an excellent choice for the Courtier, whose power is to look at another person's hand.

Sarina is gregarious, social and talented and the perfect choice for the Diplomat, whose power is to compare hands with another player. This card was easily the most time-consuming; the cake was baked by Sarina herself for a wedding and carefully illustrated.

Jesus is always, always reading, making him the Shugenja, whose power is to protect themselves for a round.

Brooke is affable, thoughtful and a strong leader, making her the perfect Hatomoto, whose power is to make another player discard their hand.

Ryan is the group's best card player, so I chose to interpret the Manipulator as the physical manipulation... of cards.

Tasha's background in education made her the perfect Sensei, whose power lies in the high value of her card.

Drew is the lovely princess, for obvious reasons.

The card back was designed to echo a classic card back, notably the intricate ink drawings that make up card backs like a Bicycle standard.

The most challenging part of this process was formatting and printing! I have a healthy respect for the amount of administrative work involved in manifesting even a small project: printing proofs, communicating with the printer, designing and formatting a foldable brochure, matching color profiles, purchasing tokens.