Eight years in the making, this deck of cards features the hand-drawn maps of professional cartographer Gregory Mitchell. Based in Fayetteville, Arkansas, Greg has lived in six states and travelled to all but Hawaii. When he retired from his “day job” as GIS (Geographic Information Systems) Coordinator for the City of Fayetteville, he went back to his roots and his first love — pen-and-ink hand-drawn maps. Combining those skills with his digital knowledge gleaned from years as a professional map-maker, Greg created this wonderful set of maps.

The idea for this deck of cards emerged during an online class taught by the amazing Stacey Bloomfield, founder of Gingiber.com. She suggested that we come up with a product/idea that would catch the eye of art directors and potential clients. Something just clicked and the idea for the deck popped into my mind: maps on every card and replacing the suits with North, South, East, and West. Later I added the suits back in because, why not? And I’ve been making postcards for years, so that was a natural fit.

North, South, East, West you say? How did we decide where to draw the lines? That was fun! Had to have 13, 13, 12, and 12 states in each suit to add up right. I realized pretty fast that it wouldn’t work to do it literally — I mean, is Hawaii furthest South or furthest West? Is Maine North or East? All of the above, of course. It turned out pretty well, I think, to use the cultural regions that most of us are familiar with: NORTH turned into the Midwest; SOUTH is the Southeast/central; EAST is the Northeast; WEST is, well, the West. Within those regions, the card number was determined by it’s geographic location, highest value is the furthest toward that direction. For example, Florida is the Ace of the South. Virginia, please don’t take offense at being the 3 of the South — you just happen to be at the northern end of the South! The North and East seemed to work better with 12 instead of 13 states, so they got the USA maps.

Production was the last challenge. I made the prototypes on my own Canon Pro 300 printer, but wanted a slick, professional product for market. The printing decision was easy — MoxyOx in nearby Springdale had done quality work for me in the past so I continued with them. The box was harder — after a few false starts I found NAPCO out of Sparta, North Carolina who patiently worked with me to design and build a beautiful, sturdy two-piece box that looks at home on the finest coffee table.