Giant STACK Cards

CREATING A PROTOTYPE

The first prototype was definitely a good learning experience. I was ambitious with what I wanted to create, but I know execution is everything. Precision was going to be key in making this card look legit. I used the Sesame card as my reference. I had been thinking about this project for a while, so I had blue sparkle vinyls ready to go. I also had the other colours I needed to create the other various elements that make up the card.

PREP WORK

• My Blue Sparkle vinyl sheet was 12" x 24", I cut it into two 12 x 12 sheets
• I decided on the max height of the card to be 11 in.
• Using Illustrator + Cricut Design Space, I prepared all the card assets as .SVG files ensuring that they all cut out at the right proportions
• I used my 12 x 12 Cricut mat and cut out the card background first
• The other assets I cut include the Mastercard logo (3 colours, 2 shapes), Chip (2 colours, 2 shapes), Logo (1 colour), Symbol (1 colour)
• Lastly, you need foam board big enough to lay on the card background vinyl

ASSEMBLY FAILURES

• I wanted the card to have coloured sides like the real card does, but my foam board was black, so I decided to wrap the foam in some gold foil paper to see what kind of effect it gives it. It looked pretty cool, but it was too messy. I knew it would be challenging to pull this off in a cleaner way.
• One of the other challenges with Vinyls is when you layer them, you can see the ridges.
• A mistake I made laying the card vinyl was not using Transfer Tape the first time around. I peeled it off directly and tried to roll it on. it ended up with SO MANY ugly imperfections. It discouraged me from continuing quite a bit.
• When I cut the foam board, I cut 4 straight lines and tried to trim the corners after - this was also a mistake.

SWITCHING UP TECHNIQUE

• After finishing the first prototype, I was not happy. The card background not laying flat bothered me. The other vinyls were easy to apply but that background just made it look so bad.
• I created a second prototype. The biggest mistakes I made in the first one was wrapping the foam board in foil, and not using transfer tape to lay out the card background vinyl. So in the second prototype, I made some adjustments. I also tried making it smaller, but realized that was unnecessary.
• Instead of trying to get that effect of the sides being coloured with the foil, I scrapped it totally.
• I used transfer tape for the card background vinyl this time and applied it directly to the foam board and rolled it flat. Came out perfectly.
• In order to retain the rounded corners, I knew I would have to cut out the corners first, before doing a straight cut along the sides. As long as I took my time and was careful, I ended up with a nicely shaped piece of Foam board with the Vinyl applied perfectly.

The Final product

• Each card has unique materials that set it apart from each other, but they all follow the same template. There is a consistency to them in build quality and materials.
• Overall, I think they turned out dope! 🔥😎