Tapping into spirituality with tarot cards has rekindled my love for graphic design

(the journey, major arcana cards O-X)

In 2023, I got really into tarot reading as well as AI generated art. So I made a deck of tarot cards with the theme of cyber-futurism with midjourney version 2-3. Those early versions of midjourney still had that signature early stage AI art 'weirdness' that was super intriguing to me, with warped/blurred facial features and of course the infamous finger mutation. To me, that's the soul of the cyber space the world was in at that time, or rather, the spirit. I named this deck 'CyberVision', and did a full production from iterating the artwork, designing the card face layout, box art, packaging, and even an instruction pamphlet. I almost think of it as a table top trading card game, where you, as 'the Fool', travel through this weird digital landscape in order to find inspirations and enlightenment.

(the purgatory, major arcana cards XI-XXI)

In tarot, the cards are divided into major arcana and minor arcana. The major arcanas represent big things, important life changes, significant interpersonal personal relationships, and major milestones of self development and growth. Meanwhile the minor arcanas represent more mundane and everyday stuff, and are categorized into four suites which also correlate to the four elements, they are wands (fire, representing passion and creativity), cups (water, representing emotions and senses), swords (air, representing thoughts and intellect), and pentacles/coins (earth, representing material possessions and physical health).

(magma world, minor arcana, suit of wands)

(abyss world, minor arcana, suit of cups)

(summit world, minor arcana, suit of swords)

(dune world, minor arcana, suit of pentacles)

These scrolls like collages I made with the cards are how I envision the journey of 'the fool' across the landscape of this deck of 'CyberVision' tarot card. There were some more polishing and iterations before I sent them to print so the final printed version that I have has some differences to the images above. And I never actually got these scroll collage illustrations printed out, but they are definitely my favorite things out of this whole project. To this day, I feel very connected to this deck of cards and actually practice reading with them from time to time.

bonus:

the fool - first iteration

the fool - final printed version

first print

final print with pamphlet and packaging