There are various ways New York City’s subway fare cards, Metro Cards, get recycled.
As his way of helping to keep the environment free of discarded Metro Cards, New York-based designer Norman Ibarra repurposes the cards by using enamel and thinner to silkscreen them, to create playing cards.
Called ‘Metrodeck’, the limited-edition playing cards were once subway fare cards that were purchased, used and thrown away by visitors or residents of New York City, and gathered at random.
According to Ibarra, some of the cards have been signed or marked—making each card unique “with its own narrative potential”, he wrote.
His silkscreen designs were inspired by significant features of the city—such as the landmarks Grand Central Terminal, the Staten Island Ferry, Coney Island and Times Square.
The Heart Suite and Ace of Spades, for example, were inspired by the city’s manhole covers.
His Metrodeck attempts to visually-capture the common thread between commuters, public transportation and chance—and asks us to consider our intimate connection with the subway and the city.
“Designing, collecting, and printing the cards has been my official after-hours pastime for almost two years,” Ibba wrote. “Each face card needed four colors to print—approximately eight hours work.”
[via Metrodeck]