These playing cards are unusual and even unique. I classified them as “typographic” but it is a conditional classification. As a rule typographic playing cards mean playing cards with pictures on them composed of letters and numbers of a specific font (Arial, Verdana, Times New Roman, etc.). These playing cards are not concentrated on letters and a specific font. They are focused on mathematics and numbers.

The manager of this project Michael Morrison (Wolfram Research, Inc.) about these playing cards for readers of this blog:

“The cards were an idea that I had years ago. I just thought it would be a neat giveaway item at conferences. It happened to be that AMATYC (American Mathematical Association of Two-Year Colleges) was being held in Las Vegas one year when I revived the idea, so it was a nice reason to finally get them created.

I came up with the function calls/mathematical operations that you see in the corners, with help from others at the company, of course. And the Design department did a spectacular job, in my opinion, with the graphics in the middle (which are constructed, of course, by the number of numbers in question; so the 6 cards are made of 6 rotated 6’s, the 9 cards are 9 rotated 9’s; etc; but for each card, the rotations are different, which makes the cards more interesting). And the fact that the designers were clever enough to turn the A’s for the aces into spikes was genius.

They were pretty popular as part of the holiday promotion that year – we sold a fair number of them. I’m glad people find them interesting, I think they’re really neat.”

Founded by Stephen Wolfram in 1987, Wolfram Research is one of the world’s most respected software companies – as well as a powerhouse of scientific and technical innovation. Mathematica is their ever-advancing core product that launched modern technical computing and has now become the world’s most powerful global computation system. They also developed the world’s largest free network of technical information websites, including MathWorld – the #1 website devoted to mathematics – as well as our latest major resources, Wolfram|Alpha and the Wolfram Demonstrations Project.

As these playing cards are not intended for professional poker tournament – they don’t have a graphitic layer. But they are printed on solid cardboard with smooth finish on its backs and some sort of linen finish on its faces. These are a nice addition to any collection.

The deck: 52 playing cards + 2 Jokers. Poker size. The deck comes in a translucent plastic case.

All pictures clickable

SPADES

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DIAMONDS