The Domino Effect

Anything old Latino men do to whittle away their golden years is probably worth draining the country’s GDP for. Like dominoes. A quiet, refined game, dominos is as dignified as chess but with the relaxed, nonchalant air of checkers. And like scopa and mahjong, it’s also sorely overlooked over here in the Occident. That’s something that Semaphor – a collaboration between Glasgow-based Derek Welsh Studio and designers Graphical House – hope to change. Hand-cut and finished, Semaphor’s wafer layered tiles are carved from birch plywood, making them a nice modern counter-point to the cheap polymer sets that try to replicate the ivory-based ones of old. A slow-paced, social game, dominoes is best played in public bars or – if you’re being authentic about it – crêperies, which is a good reason to cart them around in a cotton drawstring bag.

Published in Smith Journal, June 2012