52 Aces served

Perhaps it's the popularity of poker? Whatever it is, new decks of designer playing cards seem to be all the rage. The latest is 52 Aces edition 2 and with contributions from the likes of Eduardo Recife, Pale Horse, Matt W Moore, Gary Taxali, Seldon Hunt, Nathan Jurevicius and Molly Crabtree, it looks particularly impressive.

The project was co-ordinated by Marc Wnuck of the German publishing entity Zeixs. The first 52 Aces deck - entitled the Classic Edition - was released in 2009 won awards and sold out. "We know about the other decks, but they don't all have the quality ours has. We love poker and we wanted to create the best one," he says.

The Classic Edition led to loads of positive feedback, and through it Wnuck built up an array of contacts from around the world to call upon for the second one. The new deck will be released next month with a limited print run of 999 decks. It's the same concept, with a different package. "Why change a winning formula?" he says.

Chris Parks - aka Pale Horse - is based in St Petersburg, Florida, and created an image entitled Demon Cat for the project. "My work is heavily influenced by ancient civilizations, religion and various world cultures," he explains. "The Cat Demon piece I created for the seven of spades card was inspired by woodblock prints and evil spirits in Japanese mythology."

The upcoming edition of 52 Aces can pre-orderd here.