Hi everyone,

I wanted to share something I’ve been working on for quite a while which is finally about to see the light of day.

It’s called Prospero, and it’s a new marked deck I’ve developed alongside Phill Smith.

The project really started because I’ve used marked cards throughout my professional work for years and have tried pretty much everything from very inexpensive decks through to some of the more sophisticated systems available.

I always seemed to find a compromise somewhere.

Some markings were a little too obvious for my liking. Others were so well hidden that, under real working conditions, finding the mark quickly became almost a trick in itself. Different lighting, distance and the general chaos of an actual gig can make a big difference.

Eventually I decided I wanted to try creating the deck that I personally wanted to use.

I approached Phill with a fairly specific brief and, drawing on his previous work with marking systems, we developed something a little different.

The marking system

I obviously don’t want to expose the method publicly, but Prospero doesn’t use what I’d consider a conventional reader or coded marking system.

It’s deliberately very visual.

The best analogy I’ve found is a Magic Eye picture. Before you know what you’re looking for, you see the paisley design. Once you know how to see the information, it becomes incredibly difficult NOT to see it.

The idea was simple: hidden from the spectator, but genuinely useful to the magician.

I’ve been performing with the prototype at actual gigs and, in suitable conditions, I’m comfortably reading cards from around 6–10 feet away. That practicality was incredibly important to me.

But I didn’t want the markings to be the only useful thing about the deck.

One-way back

There’s a deceptive one-way principle built into the paisley design.

Again, once you know where it is, you can recognise the orientation virtually instantly, but there’s nothing screaming “ONE WAY DECK” when someone examines the cards.

There are obviously countless applications for a one-way deck throughout the literature, and we’ll be teaching some ideas in the accompanying tuition.

White borders

This was non-negotiable for me.

Firstly, I wanted to be able to introduce existing white-bordered gaffs into the deck without having a completely incompatible back edge.

Secondly, anyone who has worked with full-bleed backs will probably have encountered the issue where a reversed card can betray itself along the edge of the pack.

The white borders solve that too.

Add your own information

This was actually something Phill introduced during development and I absolutely love it.

There’s provision within the design for you to add your own additional markings.

So if you’re working with Mnemonica, Aronson, Si Stebbins, Joshua Jay’s Particle System or your own system, you can potentially encode information that’s useful specifically to YOU.

Those who use this sort of thing will immediately understand why that could be rather useful.

And finally, it still looks like a deck of cards.

The faces are familiar and the back is a fairly traditional green paisley design. Green has featured heavily in my own branding for years, so this was always going to be the starting colour.

I’ve now got the physical prototype in my hands and have been using it professionally. I’ve also quietly shown the marking system to a handful of magicians, and watching the moment they suddenly “see” it has been great fun.

We’re launching Prospero on Kickstarter on 28 August.

If the campaign grows, we’ve also got stretch goals planned for Red, Blue and a Black & Silver “Tuxedo” Prospero, as well as a premium tuck upgrade.

Every deck will also come with video tuition covering the marking system, psychology behind using it, the one-way principle and ideas for getting more out of the deck.

The Kickstarter pre-launch page is now live, so if this sounds like something you’d genuinely use, you can follow it now and Kickstarter will let you know when we go live.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/chr......agicians

I’m also very happy to answer questions here where I can. Obviously there are certain details of the marking system I won’t reveal publicly, but if there’s anything about the thinking, design or practical use of Prospero that you’d like to know, fire away.

Ultimately, I didn’t set out to make another pretty deck to sit unopened on a shelf.

I wanted to make the marked deck I wished I already owned.

Hopefully a few of you will feel the same.

Chris