CARTE
ALL'ITALIANA

How do you turn a national ritual into a deck of cards? The challenge with Carte all’Italiana was not just to redesign a classic French deck, but to translate the invisible scent of a Sunday lunch into a graphic system. We wanted to strip away the cold, royal conventions of traditional seeds to make room for a human, visceral bond with our culinary heritage. Hearts, Diamonds, Clubs, and Spades have been replaced by the true pillars of Italian conviviality: Tomato, Pizza, Basil, and Grapes. The difficulty lay in balancing the playful irony of the concept with a minimal, geometric aesthetic. The Royal figures are no longer distant monarchs, but the silent heroes of our tables—the Pizza Chef with his wooden peel, the Sommelier with his bottle of wine, and the keepers of raw ingredients. The back of the cards, featuring the iconic red and blue checkered pattern, is a direct tribute to the traditional tablecloth found in Italian culture, serving as a nostalgic portal to the classic osteria. The goal? To make the deck feel like a shared memory, proving that even a simple game can pulse with "living matter" when it follows the rhythm of the heart (and the stomach).