Concept
About 12 months ago, I realized I could combine my hobbies of bird watching and chipping, and thus the idea for Big Night Card Room was born. In birding, a "Big Day" is a friendly challenge to find as many bird species as possible in a single day. "Big Night Card Room" aims to capture that spirit, except that here you're adding chips to your stack.
The central concepts I wanted to employ in this design were the idea of a progression of bird species throughout the denominations, and wide variety of different birds on the birds throughout the set. To achieve this I assigned a bird family to each denomination, and within each denomination there are multiple different inlay versions depicting different species within at that family.
I had a fun time figuring out a set of North American birds that would give me that progression from common backyard feeder birds on the low value chips up to some of my favorite rarities on the high value chips while at the same time providing enough color similarity within each family and distinctiveness from the other families to make for a cohesive set.
Each chip features a bird on one side, and the denomination on the other. I was inspired by traditional coinage to create a "tails" side and a "heads" side of each chip, with the head of each bird depicted in profile like on a coin.
Breakdown
I mostly play micro stakes: 5¢/15¢ or 25¢/25¢, but I wanted room to grow in case I can ever convince my guys to play higher stakes (or if inflation catches up with us!). My breakdown isn't strictly "optimal", but I like the look of full racks, so here we are
Design and Production
This set is also the reason that Chipmatic exists! Chipmatic started out as a way for me to visualize my own designs, but I quickly realized that other people would find it useful too, and then one thing led to another, and I eventually released it as a tool for everyone to use.
These chips were manufactured by Tina and sourced through @justincarothers . Thank you to @Gear for your excellent work on the labels. Given how much time I had spent on this project, I wanted to make sure the labels would be perfect, which is why I went with Gear as opposed to using Tina's labels.
This is the first custom set I purchased, and I did the design work myself.
Ok, enough talk. Here are the photos. See below for even more details about the birds selected and for some of my inspirations for this set.
Denomination: 5¢
Bird Family: Tits (Tufted Titmouse, Black-capped Chickadee, Chestnut-backed Chickadee, Boreal chickadee)
Description: Tits The grey and orangish-pinkish-buff color on the chip was inspired by the Tufted Titmouse. Chickadees and Titmice are common backyard feeder birds familiar to many. The Tufted Titmouse was a "spark bird" for me (the bird that got me interested in bird watching).
Denomination: 25¢
Bird Family: Cardinalidae (Northern Cardinal, Rose-Breasted Grosbeak, Scarlet Tanager, Western Tanager)
Description: The tri-moon pattern has always been one of my favorites, so I wanted to include it here on the 25¢ chip, which is a workhorse in most of micro-stakes games. The colors on this chip were inspired by the Rose-Breasted Grosbeak. Cardinals are fairly common, but the Rose-Breasted Grosbeak and Tanagers on these chips are more exciting finds for most birders than chickadees.
Denomination: $1
Bird Family: Buntings (Indigo Bunting, Painted Bunting, Varied Bunting, Blue Grosbeak)
Description: I tried for a long time to design this chip around the brilliantly colored Painted Bunting, but most of my designs felt too garish and uncoordinated. I ended up still using some of the orange and red from that bird, but I also incorporated some of the varied muted blues from the Lazuli Bunting for a more cohesive look. The 414 pattern has always felt crisp and classic to me, which is why I chose it here.
Denomination: $5
Bird Family: Warblers (Blackburnian Warbler, Prothonotary Warbler, Golden-cheeked Warbler, Kirtland's Warbler)
Description: This chip is where this set all started. The edge spots are inspired by the Blackburnian Warbler, which is one of my all time favorite birds. This was originally going to be my highest denomination chip, so I included two especially rare warblers in the line up: Golden-cheeked Warbler is an endangered species that breeds exclusively in central Texas. Kirtland's Warbler is a species that was nearly extinct (at it's low point, only 167 males were known to exist), but it has since recovered. They breed exclusively in dense Jack Pine groves in central Michigan.
Denomination: $25
Bird Family: Trogons (Coppery-tailed Trogon, Eared Quetzal)
Description: This winter I was birding in Southern Arizona and saw a Coppery-Tailed Trogon for the first time. As soon as I saw it I knew I needed to add another chip to this set. Coppery-Tailed Trogons are highly sought after by bird watchers in the US because this family of birds are mostly tropical, but the very northern most part of it's range breeds in south eastern corner of Arizona. The other species I included in the set, Eared quetzal, lives primarily in Mexico, but there have been occasional spottings in Arizona as well.
"Member" Chip
Just wanted to make a little keepsake/card protector for my regulars.
Inspirations for this set
I wanted to shout out some of the sets that inspired my along the way of creating these chips:
Thanks for reading
About 12 months ago, I realized I could combine my hobbies of bird watching and chipping, and thus the idea for Big Night Card Room was born. In birding, a "Big Day" is a friendly challenge to find as many bird species as possible in a single day. "Big Night Card Room" aims to capture that spirit, except that here you're adding chips to your stack.
The central concepts I wanted to employ in this design were the idea of a progression of bird species throughout the denominations, and wide variety of different birds on the birds throughout the set. To achieve this I assigned a bird family to each denomination, and within each denomination there are multiple different inlay versions depicting different species within at that family.
I had a fun time figuring out a set of North American birds that would give me that progression from common backyard feeder birds on the low value chips up to some of my favorite rarities on the high value chips while at the same time providing enough color similarity within each family and distinctiveness from the other families to make for a cohesive set.
Each chip features a bird on one side, and the denomination on the other. I was inspired by traditional coinage to create a "tails" side and a "heads" side of each chip, with the head of each bird depicted in profile like on a coin.
Breakdown
- 200 x 5¢ (4 versions)
- 200 x 25¢ (4 versions)
- 200 x $1 (4 versions)
- 200 x $5 (4 versions)
- 100 x $25 (2 versions)
- 25 x "member" (giveaways for my regulars)
I mostly play micro stakes: 5¢/15¢ or 25¢/25¢, but I wanted room to grow in case I can ever convince my guys to play higher stakes (or if inflation catches up with us!). My breakdown isn't strictly "optimal", but I like the look of full racks, so here we are
Design and Production
This set is also the reason that Chipmatic exists! Chipmatic started out as a way for me to visualize my own designs, but I quickly realized that other people would find it useful too, and then one thing led to another, and I eventually released it as a tool for everyone to use.
These chips were manufactured by Tina and sourced through @justincarothers . Thank you to @Gear for your excellent work on the labels. Given how much time I had spent on this project, I wanted to make sure the labels would be perfect, which is why I went with Gear as opposed to using Tina's labels.
This is the first custom set I purchased, and I did the design work myself.
Ok, enough talk. Here are the photos. See below for even more details about the birds selected and for some of my inspirations for this set.
Denomination: 5¢
Bird Family: Tits (Tufted Titmouse, Black-capped Chickadee, Chestnut-backed Chickadee, Boreal chickadee)
Description: Tits The grey and orangish-pinkish-buff color on the chip was inspired by the Tufted Titmouse. Chickadees and Titmice are common backyard feeder birds familiar to many. The Tufted Titmouse was a "spark bird" for me (the bird that got me interested in bird watching).
Denomination: 25¢
Bird Family: Cardinalidae (Northern Cardinal, Rose-Breasted Grosbeak, Scarlet Tanager, Western Tanager)
Description: The tri-moon pattern has always been one of my favorites, so I wanted to include it here on the 25¢ chip, which is a workhorse in most of micro-stakes games. The colors on this chip were inspired by the Rose-Breasted Grosbeak. Cardinals are fairly common, but the Rose-Breasted Grosbeak and Tanagers on these chips are more exciting finds for most birders than chickadees.
Denomination: $1
Bird Family: Buntings (Indigo Bunting, Painted Bunting, Varied Bunting, Blue Grosbeak)
Description: I tried for a long time to design this chip around the brilliantly colored Painted Bunting, but most of my designs felt too garish and uncoordinated. I ended up still using some of the orange and red from that bird, but I also incorporated some of the varied muted blues from the Lazuli Bunting for a more cohesive look. The 414 pattern has always felt crisp and classic to me, which is why I chose it here.
Denomination: $5
Bird Family: Warblers (Blackburnian Warbler, Prothonotary Warbler, Golden-cheeked Warbler, Kirtland's Warbler)
Description: This chip is where this set all started. The edge spots are inspired by the Blackburnian Warbler, which is one of my all time favorite birds. This was originally going to be my highest denomination chip, so I included two especially rare warblers in the line up: Golden-cheeked Warbler is an endangered species that breeds exclusively in central Texas. Kirtland's Warbler is a species that was nearly extinct (at it's low point, only 167 males were known to exist), but it has since recovered. They breed exclusively in dense Jack Pine groves in central Michigan.
Denomination: $25
Bird Family: Trogons (Coppery-tailed Trogon, Eared Quetzal)
Description: This winter I was birding in Southern Arizona and saw a Coppery-Tailed Trogon for the first time. As soon as I saw it I knew I needed to add another chip to this set. Coppery-Tailed Trogons are highly sought after by bird watchers in the US because this family of birds are mostly tropical, but the very northern most part of it's range breeds in south eastern corner of Arizona. The other species I included in the set, Eared quetzal, lives primarily in Mexico, but there have been occasional spottings in Arizona as well.
"Member" Chip
Just wanted to make a little keepsake/card protector for my regulars.
Inspirations for this set
I wanted to shout out some of the sets that inspired my along the way of creating these chips:
- Club 72 (@SteveEH ) -- I just love the understated, simple, design of this set. It's so elegant. Sometimes less is more.
- Puffin Card Club (@NeoViny23) -- This set helped me realize I could combine my birding and chipping hobbies!
- Dragon's Den (@Hotus777) -- I loved the way that this set uses slightly different illustrations on each denomination. This was part of the inspiration for my varied illustrations.
- So many others: The Rainier Room (@madforpancakes), everything by @Cratty , Casa Mango (@Eloe2000), Horseshoe Pesta 1895 tournament (@Coyote), Hotel Mapes, The Sundowner
Thanks for reading
