Humble mercenary origins to royally flush with universal digital symbology
The use of “cards” to spotlight information is a standard tool in the kit of the UI/UX designer. Cards are often used as one of a class of go-to menu components (like, lists or tables) in a wide variety of contexts. From e-commerce websites, to social media platforms, news/weblogs and dating apps or task management applications — they all use card-based layouts.
Trying to articulate the role of cards, especially card-based games in digital culture, feels like an exercise in making a list of everything. How did the logoforms that adorn cards come to be recognized around the planet? How does one catalogue something akin to epigenetic evolution in motion? As David Parlett, an archivist and expert in the history of playing-cards put it:
“The history of suit-marks demonstrates a fascinating interplay between words, shapes and concepts.”
Human beings seem hard-wired to be transfixed by cards, even in an abstract ephemeral and digital form.
