How these cards are made

1. Research

   I use the same research prompt for every musician: born and died, instruments, which bands and when, the tunes they're known for, who they played with.

2. Picking the facts

   There's always far more than fits on a card, so a second pass pulls out the bits worth remembering, like the four-foot drummer who cut Benny Goodman, the eleven marriages, or the death in a dentist's chair.

3. Drawing the card

   Each card is two images, front and back, both AI-generated from a templated prompt.

4. Iterating

   When a card comes back wrong I add a rule to the template so it doesn't happen again. Most cards will take a few goes to get the formatting right.

5. Printing?

   That's the goal. The cards are 2:3, which isn't a standard playing-card shape, so I'm still looking for a service that will print them at the right proportions. If you know of one, leave me a note.

A note on accuracy

AI does the legwork, but I check it. Each musician's fact sheet lists the sources it came from — books, archives and online references — so you can look for yourself. Things still get through. If you spot a mistake, please tell me.

Artwork generated with Gemini 3 / Nano Banana Pro via Adobe Firefly, with the recolour passes done there too. Research, drafting and the website built with Claude.