About Kawaii Tarot

In 2016 I was an anxious mess of an independent freelancing web developer. For some reason the part of my brain that was in charge of asking big questions wouldn’t be quiet. “What’s our purpose?” etc.

Although I picked up some scientific books and self-help books (I was a left-brained programmer after all) I felt unsatisfied with the answers. They all seemed to reach a hard limit of usefulness.

Tarot was calling to me, so I got a classic Waite-Smith deck. In the 78 cards were all of life, and it relieved a lot of anxiety in the short-term, to be able to see from afar (a bird’s eye view), for example, where things repeat and what needs attention.

I created Kawaii Tarot as a way to practice both tarot and illustration, skills I was immersing myself into then. I remember getting the idea one night and racing to my notebook to sketch out the major arcana.

The deck was published by Sterling Ethos in 2018. It turned out to really appeal to people who thought tarot images were scary but were still attracted to the idea of divination, children (I sometimes hear of children who watch their mom read tarot wanting their own cards—but many decks will have adult themes or whatever), and teens.