A digital reading needed more than cards and definitions. It needed a sequence with a pause in it.

iPhone / Cut the deck

iPhone / Reveal

Cutting the deck is a deliberate pause before the three-card reveal. Both screens use Neil’s original generated deck.

Status

Working pre-release app for iPhone and iPad.

01 / Why it exists

Arcanova began with Neil’s own interest in tarot. He wanted to see how the traditional 78-card system could become a thoughtfully designed digital experience, one that felt reflective rather than predictive or game-like.

That meant designing the moments around an answer: grounding, choosing a spread, shuffling, cutting, drawing, revealing, reading and optionally recording a private note. The interface also had to hold the complete card content and long-form readings without slipping into visual clutter.

02 / Evidence in the work

The sequence makes room for a pause.

Screens and artefacts from the project itself. Each caption explains what it shows.

Arcanova interface asking the user to choose the first card from a fanned deck — The reading unfolds through an explicit sequence: choose, cut, draw and reveal.

Arcanova iPhone screen with three face-down piles ready to be restacked — After the cut, the reader chooses the order of the three piles. This small interaction gives the ritual a sense of agency before cards are drawn.

Arcanova three-card spread showing past, present and future positions — The reveal keeps the spread structure visible before opening the longer interpretation.

Arcanova Insight reading combining three cards into one structured narrative — The optional Insight layer reads the spread as a whole, combining three cards into one structured narrative.

03 / Designing the ritual

Designing the ritual

The sequence gives each decision a visible place. A user chooses a spread, cuts the deck with two markers, restacks three piles in their chosen order, then draws and reveals the cards before reading the interpretation.

Safety language keeps the experience reflective and avoids deterministic promises. Journal content stays private and the product does not present a reading as professional or mental-health advice.

04 / Making 78 cards feel like one deck

Making 78 cards feel like one deck

Neil created the deck through a consistency-led prompting and generation process, rather than treating each card as an isolated image.

The task was to hold a shared visual grammar across 78 different scenes while preserving the symbolism and identity of each card. The finished deck is then treated as a protected product asset: full-bleed, uncropped and consistently framed throughout the ritual, deck library, readings, widget and exports.

The deck, up close

Twelve finished cards from the 78-card app deck: four Major Arcana designs and two from each Minor Arcana suit. Numbered and court cards sit together to show how the shared illustration treatment, cream title panel and gold details hold across very different scenes.

Arcanova The Empress card: a crowned figure in a floral robe seated in a lush garden — **The Empress**Major Arcana

Arcanova The Chariot card: an armoured figure in a chariot above black and white sphinxes — **The Chariot**Major Arcana

Arcanova The Moon card: a moonlit path between two towers with two canines and a crayfish — **The Moon**Major Arcana

Arcanova The World card: a figure within a laurel wreath surrounded by four symbolic creatures — **The World**Major Arcana

Arcanova Three of Wands card: a cloaked figure stands with three staffs overlooking the sea — **Three of Wands**Wands

Arcanova Queen of Wands card: a crowned woman holds a sunflower and wand on a golden throne — **Queen of Wands**Wands

Arcanova Two of Cups card: two people exchange golden cups beneath a winged lion — **Two of Cups**Cups

Arcanova Ten of Cups card: a family beneath a rainbow of ten cups — **Ten of Cups**Cups

Arcanova Three of Swords card: a red heart pierced by three swords in rain — **Three of Swords**Swords

Arcanova Page of Swords card: a young figure holds a sword on a windswept hill — **Page of Swords**Swords

Arcanova Six of Pentacles card: a robed figure gives coins to two kneeling people — **Six of Pentacles**Pentacles

Arcanova Knight of Pentacles card: an armoured rider holds a pentacle while seated on a dark horse — **Knight of Pentacles**Pentacles

05 / What Neil built

What Neil built

Arcanova is a native SwiftUI product with five spreads, a deterministic seedable deck engine, journal and history, daily card, deck reference, notifications, a widget and phone-format PDF sharing.

The free layer is rules-based and works on-device, so a complete reading never depends on a network call. Optional paid Insight readings use structured output and run through a server-side proxy, which keeps the provider key out of the app. Neil’s role covered product definition, the generated artwork, experience architecture, interaction design and native implementation.

06 / What this demonstrates

Arcanova shows experience architecture across a long interaction: consistency-led generated artwork, a clear ritual, a reusable content system, a deterministic offline core and a separately bounded AI narrative layer.

Next step

Designing a content-rich experience that has to feel deliberate rather than dense? Start with the sequence the user should feel, not the feature list.

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