People often ask me where a tarot deck begins. Is it an image? A symbol? A sudden lightning-bolt moment of inspiration?
The honest answer is much quieter than that. A tarot deck usually begins as a feeling I cannot ignore.
Step One: The Uncomfortable Spark
Every deck I have created started with a tension inside me. A question I kept circling. A phase of life where I felt stuck, curious, unsettled, or deeply reflective.
I do not sit down thinking, “I am going to design a tarot deck now.”
Instead, I notice patterns in my thoughts. The themes that follow me for weeks or months. The questions I keep asking myself in journals, late at night, or during long walks.
When a theme refuses to leave, I know it wants to become something tangible.
That is when I begin.
Step Two: Research Without Rules
Before I draw anything, I research. But not in a rigid way.
I read mythology, psychology, poetry. I look at art history, symbols, old decks, modern decks, forgotten decks. I save images, colors, textures, phrases, fragments of ideas.
At this stage, I do not decide what the deck “should” be.
I let myself wander.
This part is messy and unstructured. Notes are scattered. Sketches make no sense yet. Sometimes I abandon ideas completely. Sometimes they return months later, transformed.
I have learned to trust this chaos. It is part of the process.
Step Three: Choosing the Emotional Core
Before drawing a single card, I ask myself one important question:
What should someone feel when they use this deck?
Not what should they learn.
Not what should it predict.
But how should it sit in their hands?
How should it speak to them when they are vulnerable?
This emotional core becomes my compass. Whenever I feel lost later, I come back to it.
If a card does not align with that feeling, it does not belong.
Step Four: Writing Before Drawing
This part surprises many people.
I write before I draw.
I write keywords, moods, shadows, light aspects, and inner questions for each card. Especially for the Major Arcana. I explore how I personally understand the archetype, not how it is traditionally explained.
Tradition matters, but personal truth matters more.
Only after I feel emotionally connected to a card do I allow myself to visualize it.
Step Five: The First Card Is Always the Hardest
The first card is terrifying.
It sets the tone.
It defines the style.
It becomes the reference point for everything else.
I usually redraw it many times.
I doubt myself. I question whether I am capable of finishing the deck at all. This happens every single time, no matter how many decks I have created before.
Eventually, there is a moment when the card feels… quiet. Settled. Like it belongs.
That is when I know the deck has officially begun.
Step Six: Letting the Deck Teach Me
Once the first card exists, the deck starts to guide me instead of the other way around.
Symbols repeat themselves naturally. Colors find their own logic. Certain motifs insist on appearing again and again.
I pay attention to what the deck wants to say, not just what I planned.
Some cards come easily. Others resist. Those resistant cards often reflect areas of my own life I have not fully explored yet.
Designing a tarot deck is never just design.
It is dialogue.
Final Thoughts
By the time someone holds the finished deck, they see a polished object. A box. Cards. Artwork.
What they do not see are the months of questioning, rewriting, starting over, trusting intuition, and learning to listen more than control.
And honestly, that is what I love most about creating tarot decks.
They change me as much as I create them.
If you have ever wondered whether you could create something like this too, I will tell you this:
If a question keeps following you, it is already the beginning of a deck.