Couture by Omar Renfro
Couture by Omar Renfro is a custom playing card deck created by jeweler and magician Omar Renfro.
Omar and I met by chance while I was working on a photography assignment. He volunteered to have his portrait taken, and that encounter eventually developed into a creative collaboration around the launch of his signature deck.
The product itself was already designed. My role was to create the visual world around it.
I developed the photography, art direction, overall look and feel, and advertising imagery used to present Couture as more than a traditional deck of cards. The visual direction drew from Omar’s background in magic, jewelry, fashion, and performance, creating imagery that felt dramatic, refined, mysterious, and collectible.
The Challenge
The deck already had a distinctive personality, but it needed a visual presentation that could communicate that personality immediately.
Rather than photographing Couture as a conventional playing card product, I wanted the imagery to reflect the world around Omar himself: magic, luxury, fashion, performance, and mystery.
The challenge was to build a consistent visual language across product photography, portraiture, and promotional imagery while keeping the deck at the center of the story.
The direction became intentionally cinematic and theatrical, using dramatic lighting, movement, card manipulation, rich shadows, reflective surfaces, and a restrained red, black, blue, and metallic palette.
The goal was simple:
Make the product feel like an object from Omar’s world, not something placed into a generic product shoot.
The Solution
I developed the project’s art direction, photography, visual design, ad imagery, and creative development.
I used dramatic lighting, deep shadows, card movement, reflective surfaces, and a restrained red, black, blue, and metallic palette to create a cinematic look that felt sophisticated and mysterious.
The result was a consistent visual system that gave the deck a stronger identity across product shots, portraits, and promotional imagery.
