First CPC Cash Set draft design (6 Viewers)

[Kam]

Taking a break from murdering this evening to decompress from the frustration (expectations > skills & patience).

Highlight of today was making progress on the labels. Thought I'd share the journey.

First off, I don't have any illustrator/ graphic design skills, but had a general idea of what theme I was looking for - outdoor california life of ocean/ fish / ski / mountain stuff. So I subscribed to an AI graphic app called Da Vinci, and played around for a few evenings with different prompts to try and help visualize what some of the themes would look like.

In general I'd say if it's a generic prompt, like snowy mountain vista etc, it'd give some interesting and reasonable stuff. As soon as I started trying really specific stuff, it got whacky or trippy fast. I'm sure you could spend more time to refine the prompts, but realized it wasn't worth the effort for me, but was fun for a few evenings to mess around with.

Some examples of results (trying to get something like a poker chip label):

The fish specific ones were pretty hilarious out of the ocean related theme:

The main benefit of doing this 'pre-vis' was that I realized my original theme really wouldn't translate the way I'd like it to for a consistent theme across my cash set. So I decided to concentrate on the local ocean wildlife / fishing that I love...

 

[Kam]

Now that I had a more focused idea of ocean / wildlife, I could now be specific with my label designer, JB @tallsbutler. First off, I would thoroughly recommend JB for anyone that would like help with a label designer (he also does entire TINA / Ceramic sets, Dealer buttons etc). JB was great in understanding what I was trying to achieve, and really hit it out of the park first time. We had maybe 3 revisions to get to this point.

My chips, pre-murder:

Side A:

Side B:

@Jacks I think was the only other set I found that had a similar fishing focused theme (stumbled across when looking for something else).
@Taghkanic Hoyle set I really liked for the colors and how they pulled in and used all the elements of the chip

 

[Kam]

For fishing at least out of San Diego, it's all about bait, typically sardines. So I liked the thought of starting off with a small bait fish for the 25c. It's not as common, but I love when all of a sudden flying fish erupt from the water - typically a sign of something bigger lurking underneath - it's definitely a larger baitfish and something the bigger tuna definitely go after.

For the $5, a squid would be more accurate for fishing, however I loved the thought of representing the workhorse $5 chip with an Octopus, representing the camouflage and intelligence needed for poker.

We've had a few awesome days out on the water all because we found a kelp paddy. There is no real structure out on the ocean here, so you need to find either birds diving on bait fish (that'll be pushed up to the surface by tuna etc), or a kelp paddy that has bait fish underneath for protection. We idle up or near the kelp paddy, and it's a great feeling when you throw a sardine or two out and see a flash of color. We've caught both yellow tail (the blank NCV that I'll initially use probably as an All In chip) and Mahi Mahi ($25) this way. The $100 is represented by the tuna - although I've only ever caught up to the 20-30lb 'schoolie' range, they can get to the 60-100lb, even 200lb. So the $100 was reserved for the tuna.

We're working on a Dealer button design, that'll represent the kelp paddy & terns that signal bait fish, and the sardines will be the first out for the blinds... and they'll lead to some bigger fish

 

[Kam]

I've been in touch with @Gear & @Wifey - they've also had some good feedback. JB's initial design used the Blaze Orange as the background, however the feedback was that the color wouldn't be that similar when actually printed, hence the switch to the plum for the contrast against the green Mahi Mahi:

Gear also advised that probably should focus only on printing Side A, since there might be too much detail/ fine lines on the B side to be seen. They recommended I do some local to size printing as examples, and now deciding if I should get some samples or not, or only have side A on both sides.

My preference would be for textured labels, however listening to @Wifey, sounds like the finer details wouldn't come through or be lost, so the smooth matt laminate would be better.

Cheers

Kam