The Pokémon TCG redesign was a project that I did for a Letter Society project. The cards themselves have undergone slight variations since I was a kid so I thought it’d be fun to give them a makeover. I was hoping for a radically new design but once I dove into the analysis of the cards’ elements, I realized that the layout was quite functional and only need minor retooling.

 

You’ll notice that I simplified the colors and finishes being used so that the artwork of the Pokémon is more of a driving force. I learned that some special editions do use a full card illustration so it was nice to see that I was contributing in a manner that isn’t all together foreign to the community.

When it came to choosing artwork, I did some hunting and found a variety of illustrations on both Tumblr and other photo networks. I wanted to use fan generated illustrations because I see so many that blow me away and show my appreciation of their work. Rapidash was illustrated by Rock-Bomber (deviantart) and Kyogre was done by scottsakae (Tumblr). Both illustrations are gorgeous! If you look carefully, they are also credited on the cards about half-way down on the right, in the manner of the current cards.

 

After doing the character cards, I thought it was only right that I pay the Energy cards and the front of the card a visit. My goal, again, was to simplify and remove clutter so I updated the iconography and aimed to keep the colors relative and vibrant.