Na Káry

drinking game, card game, students, college, student life, advertisement, graphic design, visual identity, socials, marketing

TL;DR: Process behind drinking card game “Na Káry”. Project started as personal, on demand was made into an actual game, first only digitally then physically,
the whole process took approximately 8 months. Cards have minimalistic design, mostly black and white. Game has 7 different decks.

The beginnings

This project started last year as a personal project. It all began in summer 2020 with me playing a drinking card game with a normal set of playing cards, and then trying to find some similar game in czech language, but with specialized cards. After searching and finding literally nothing, I decided to create my own set of cards for my personal needs. I created a few cards and put them on my TikTok account. It caught quite a bit of traction and people were asking whether it would be sold. Hence why I created my very own deck of cards.

 

I began with creating 3 decks of cards. Each deck
contained 70 different cards and were themed.
Basic deck: Basic drinking cards, for example: Single people drink, ladies drink, finish your drink, and few dare and action cards
Sex deck: Cards containing questions and dares regarding personal sex life
Fun deck: Fun dares, main purpose of this deck is to have fun and being silly

When the idea was that the cards would only be for my personal needs, I wanted to create them in english and I wanted it to be called “Black out”, but since the demand to make these cards in czech got higher, I decided to change the language to czech. Hence all of the cards being black — they were supposed to be called “Black out” and I kinda liked the design so it stuck.

At this stage, I was selling them only via digital copies on online e-shop Etsy. I didn’t have manufacturer and it was around exam period in school, so selling physical copies got postponed until summer of 2021, because finding a printing house and creating and printing the actual cards took approximately 5 months.

 

Physical decks

I started selling my cards physically in mid-July 2021. At this time I already had 5 decks with 2 more coming in October. They all start with the letters “Na”, because the game is called “Na Káry” and I wanted all the decks to have a cohesive title.

NAdržení (Horny) – originally called “sex deck” – about personal sex life
NAdržení NA druhou (Horny2) – sequel to Horny – more cards about sex
NAsmátí (foolish) – originally called “fun deck” – about being silly
NAzdar (hello) – cards to get to know people, questions you wouldn’t normally ask but they tell you a lot about the person
NÁhoda (coincidence) – add-on to basic deck, isn’t themed, just new style of playing cards
NAštvaní (angry) – toxic cards, designed to test friendships

 

With wanting to sell physical copies, I had to create my own e-commerce website. That´s when www.nakary.eu came to life. It was the first time, I had ever designed a website on my own, and through the years it changed quite a lot.

The cards got popular quite fast. I got 100 orders in the first 2 weeks, and it had the biggest boom 1 month later, thanks to one video that got over 500 thousand of views!

You can check the video here:

 

E-shop

You can visit the e-shop here: 

I am also selling the decks on the largest e-shop in Czech Republic, which you can visit here:

Changes

As of right now, I am changing the design of the cards itself. When I first created them, I was in my first year of graphic design studies, and now, some years later, I don´t like them like I used to. I would like to change the design to fit more my style and also make them look better design and typography-wise. Also, I want them to look more coherent and to be worded better, as there are many cards that can be understood multiple ways or are not as clear.

I have successfully changed first deck, which is the basic one. You can see bellow, how some of the cards have changed.

I would like to change all of the decks to be more updated, so they are work in progress!

Hot takes

In conclusion, what are some things I learned and tried thanks to this project?

Creating the individual cards and the rules
Designing the cards, packaging
Social media marketing
Advertisement targeting
Video editing
Animating
3D modeling
Creating website and e-commerce
Creating of mock ups

And a lot more to come!