This review is part of a three part series of pictorial reviews featuring Stockholm17 (aka designer Lorenzo Gaggiotti), and his decks of playing cards:
Stockholm17 - 1. Introduction + The Requiem & Heretic decks
Stockholm17 - 2. The No. 17 & Le Chat Rouge decks
Stockholm17 - 3. The Ravn & Gemini decks + Conclusion




INTRODUCING STOCKHOLM17

"Stockholm17" is the online handle and home of Lorenzo Gaggiotti, creator of several popular decks of playing cards. With Italian roots, and a passion for drawing that began in childhood, Lorenzo now lives in Stockholm, Sweden, where today he is a product designer and illustrator. But it was his discovery of custom decks of playing cards that proved to be the ideal platform for him to explore his love for creative design. Typically he gets inspired by a theme or idea, and does a lot of thinking and sketching with this in mind before starting a digital version of the final design. So far he's produced several decks in a number of variations: Requiem, Heretic, No.17, No.17 Le Chat Rouge, Ravn, and most recently, Gemini. In this review, I will continue my overview of Lorenzo's beautiful playing cards. Be prepared for some elegance, class, and art!



NO. 17 PLAYING CARDS

The No. 17 deck has had three versions, as Lorenzo has continued to improved and refined it over time.

Version 1

The first edition of the series of No 17 decks was made as a secret and promotional deck for cardlauncher.com, and printed by MakePlayingCards.com in 2014. It was a limited edition with a small print run of just 530 copies.



Version 2

In 2015, Lorenzo produced an improved edition of the original No. 17 deck, with funding via Kickstarter and printing by US Playing Cards Company.



A notable feature of this deck is the intricate artwork on the card backs and on cards like the Aces.



The court cards also are beautifully detailed and stylish.



Two versions were produced, a Bicycle version and an unbranded version.



NO. 17 "LE CHAT ROUGE" PLAYING CARDS

Version 3

In 2016, Lorenzo produced the third incarnation of his No. 17 series, which he entitled Le Chat Rouge, and which he personally considers "elegant and intriguing".



It has an absolutely stunning tuck box, which was embossed on black paper with red and black foil accents, and with an amazing and intricate custom cut-out showing the center of the card backs.



Le Chat Rouge is intended to be the final version of the series, and was printed by Expert Playing Card Company. After good experiences with Expert Playing Company on another project, Lorenzo had confidence in their precise alignment during the printing process to add elegant black inner borders on all the card faces.



As Lorenzo himself said in an interview, products like the iPhone series keep evolving, and that's true of his decks as well! Indeed, why not?!



Also added were red foil accents to the back of the cards. It is small cosmetic enhancements like these that help take this successful deck to the next level, even though it did make the deck more expensive due to the higher production costs required for this.



The updated version feels more polished and complete, and the enhancements have helped turn something that was already good into something great. Here's a direct comparison between two cards from both versions, the newer "Le Chat Rouge" on the right.



"Le Chat Rouge" is French for "red cat", and in keeping with this, both jokers are jester cats. A red cat also makes an appearance on top of the Ace of Diamonds.



CONCLUSION

See my other reviews in this series for reviews on Lorenzo's other decks.

I have been excited to write this review about the Stockholm17 range of playing cards, and in the process I have been blown away by Lorenzo's creativity and the thought he puts into his design. These are powerful and poetic cards, that have been perfected and polished, with a great deal of style. Bravo Lorenzo Gaggiotti, and grazie!



To see more, head to: stockholm17.com

No. 17 decks: https://www.stockholm17.com/17

Online shop: https://www.stockholm17.com/shop
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/stockholm17
Instagram: http://www.instagram.com/stockholm17
Twitter: https://twitter.com/stockholm_17

I had someone contact me asking where they can purchase the Stockholm17 decks and how much they cost, since that info wasn't included in my review.

Decks like these typically cost around $15. Not all of the decks reviewed above are readily available right now, but RarePlayingCards has some of the Stockholm17 playing cards in stock for around that price range, e.g. click here for: Ravn Playing Cards and No. 17 Playing Cards.