Tactics Design
Late modernist Japanese playing cards designed by Masayoshi Nakajo for Tactics Design.
In this deck we see simplified geometric shapes in the minimalist style. The human figures are distilled into semi-abstract shapes. There's almost a Bauhaus influence in the way forms are reduced to basic elements. The jokers are particularly charming, prized by joker collectors, sharing the geometric idiom but with more ambiguity than the court cards. The back design has "TACTICS DESIGN" hidden in a striped pattern like an optical illusion.
The ace of spades merges symbol and text with a gridded, engineered typeface like a mission statement for the whole deck! And the deck also aligns with Nintendo's mission to expand from playing cards into high-end entertainment systems.
Masayoshi Nakajo (1933-2021) was born in Tokyo. He graduated from the Tokyo University of Fine Arts and Music in 1956 with a major in design. Worked in the advertising division of Shiseido Co., Ltd. from 1956 to 59 and then at Deska until 1960, when he became a freelancer. He established the Nakajo Design Office in 1961. His awards include: Tokyo ADC Grand Prize, JACC Yamana prize in 1989, JAGDA Masaru Katsumi Prize in 1991, Mainichi Design Award in 1992.
Above: Tactics Design advertising playing cards designed by Masayoshi Nakajo, manufactured by Nintendo, 1982. 52 cards + 2 jpkers in box.
By Jon Randall
Australia • Member since May 28, 2020
From 6 or 7 years of age I enjoyed playing cards with my family, and still enjoy a variety of games today with various groups and individuals. I contribute my competitive nature to enjoying games … it’s not that I like to win, I dislike losing! I was barely 10 years old when my great Uncle left me a small collection of playing cards and that was the starting point of my collecting. The competitive streak in me helped develop me into a competitive swimmer that sent me to various places around the world, including a 6 year stint in the US, where for much of that time I was at university. I’ve always enjoyed car boots flea markets, yard sales, charity shops etc., and my eye would never miss a pack of playing cards. Even after my swimming career finished I coached at a high level for many years and continued enjoying the discovery of some great finds around the world. For decades my collection continued to grow, despite selling a portion of it via eBay over the years. It wasn’t until post 2010 that I realised, mostly due to correspondence with Australian friends, that there were so many single playing card collectors. This intrigued me. I had so many packs of cards at home that I made the bold decision to share a good number with singles collectors, and subsequently listed around 7000 for sale on eBay. That did make a dent in my collection, but there’s still around 30,000 packs taking up quite a bit of space at home. Crazy? Yes, but I’ve seen bigger hoards a few times! There’s so many I surprise myself finding packs I forgot I had when I look in a box I’d not seen in a while.
My eBay IDs if you’d like to look are “worldwide_playing_cards” & “playing_cards_world”►
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