Visionary frames: A Tarot inspired showcase

Feb 14

This project is a fusion of visual storytelling and mystical interpretation, reimagining the narratives of our commercials and projects through the lens of tarot. By transforming stills from our year's productions into a bespoke deck, we bring a bit more of ourselves into our work. Each card encapsulates a story, a moment frozen in time, aiming to showcase our work in a new way, and with new meaning, transcending its original context.

Inspired by the vibrant designs of vintage Chinese firework packaging, this project transforms our work into a compelling deck of tarot cards, each telling its own unique story.

The Inspiration - Vintage Fireworks packaging

The mystical realm holds a special place in our hearts at Cake and we wanted to bring more of ourselves into the design of this showcase. We had done such a variety of work over the last year and felt a deck of cards was a great way to encapsulate the diversity in what we produced. We began by defining each piece of work into its core essence, and, if found in a traditional tarot what the title of each card would be.

The explosive vibrancy and intricate designs of vintage Chinese fireworks packaging became the guiding aesthetic, infusing each card with rich colours, often matched in non-traditional ways. We wanted the physicality of the cards to mimic both a traditional Rider–Waite–Smith lithography print aesthetic as well as the paper and woodblock process found in vintage packaging design and applied this to both the visual frames from the projects and the overall card design.

We used the Cake font as we wanted the project to tie back to the Cake brand.

We made a total of 13 cards for this project, showcasing work across the Cake directors over the last year. We aimed to a pair the 22 traditional Major Arcana numbering system to the cards we felt may have an appropriate counterpart, as we have 13 cards, our numbering is not a straight numerical flow of 0 - 12 rather a borrowed listing to their counterparts.