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Not long after I finished working on Inner Dimensions Tarot in late 2020, I started playing with art and design for other card projects I had in mind. Some didn’t work out in the moment and eventually that playing around resulted in what I now call the Dark Revolution and Bright Revelation playing card decks.

These decks were primarily born of my love for historical and botanical art, especially that of the Renaissance period. I let myself be inspired by French 18th century museum pieces as can be found on the digital catalogue of the Met Museum website. Another thing I was heavily inspired by that started this rabbit hole were Acanthus or Scroll leaves. The simple botanical details one can find on old scrolls and texts.

| Darkness and Light

At first I started working on Dark Revolution. I wanted a dark aesthetic playing card deck with that old renaissance vibe, there aren’t many dark or black card decks out there from what I could see, certainly not in this style. It will be no surprise that my go to colour scheme became grayscale with “gold”, as it quickly has become my favourite colour scheme since working on my Tarot. As someone who loves illustrative things, I thought it appropriate to therefore also make the fronts more displays of art than simple playing card faces.

Continue reading “The making of Dark Revolution and Bright Revelation Playing Cards” →

In 2015 I started my study of Media Design (Mediavormgever) at CIBAP vakschool voor verbeelding. During this time I specialised in the areas of Graphic Design and 2D Animation, while also getting some experience regarding Webs design and filmmaking. While I’ve been exposed to the basics of all of these, I have limited experience coding and have never been very interested in film.

As part of my education I’ve done 3 internships. 2 of those focused on Animation, and one of them on Graphic Design.

• Eigenz, Deventer. A small design studio that does both graphic design and 2d animation. I had the pleasure of working on several of their videos as an animator in 2017. You can find that work here.
• Breedbeeld, Deventer. Not a film company as the name implies, but a graphic design firm. Here I worked on business cards, folders, web designs, as well as window stickers in 2018. You can look through my work there here.
• TriMotion, Hengelo. A design firm that does a lot more than just design, it’s a little complicated. Here, in 2019, I did a few odd design jobs, like a card deck, as well as animations for their own social environment that aren’t made public.

In 2018-2019 I had my graduation year where I worked on my masterpiece Inner Dimensions Tarot, which started off as a 22 card (Major Arcana) set and got released for purchase as a full 78 tarot set in 2020.

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Inner Dimensions Tarot is a project dear to my heart. I started this project during my graduation year for my study of Media-Design, as part of my exam masterpiece (2019). I’ve been using Tarot since I was a kid, thanks to my mother, so making my own set was like a dream project. A dream I was able to start working on for school, nonetheless.

Little did I know, this project would be quite a journey, that didn’t end with my graduation, but rather got truly started there. A rabbit hole that made me hunger for more. Now, in the summer of 2020, I can finally say that this project has reached its final stage.

Continue reading “Making Inner Dimensions Tarot” →

As a queer person myself, I find themes surrounding LGBT+ and gender equality and inclusion very important, and believe this reflects in my work. Apart from that I’m very into occultism, mythology and folklore, and (fantasy) role-playing games such as Dungeons & Dragons, Vaesen and Symbaroum.

Continue reading “Who is Ashe” →