Hitchcock

Above: a playing card featuring Janet Leigh's iconic scream from the classic Hitchcock thriller, Psycho.

English director, Alfred Hitchcock had a career spanning six decades, from 1925 with The Pleasure Garden, through to Family Plot in 1976. This deck of cards, pays tribute to his more well-known movies and regular actors, whilst also acknowledging some lesser known works.

The deck has some structure:

• Aces – close ups of his leading lights, wracked with fear
• Twos – suitably couples from four of his classic films
• Threes – film posters
• Fours – monochrome photos of Hitch and leading men
• Fives through to Jacks – a fabulous selection of posters including rarely seen European ones
• Queens -  naturally his leading ladies
• Kings – are all related to possibly his most infamous film Psycho
• The jokers feature Tippi Hedren and Hitch from The Birds

I love the subtle touch on the box side, where a line underneath the text is turned into a telephone wire, upon which is the silhouette of a bird!

A double-sided info card by Nicholas Bird features a small essay on Hitchcock and his films.

Design and text is by Nicky Bird, published by Bird Playing Cards, designed by Haime and Butler, printed by Piatnik. The box sides carry more detail about the deck.

The cards are all vertically viewed. The Piatnik number is 1612. The super quality of the cards is everything you would expect from this printer.  The deck is still available from Bird Playing Cards.