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ASCII art stands for American Standard Code for Information Interchange. It was standardised in 1968 but had its most extensive use during 80s and 90s. It uses standard printable characters to show art and was popularised on the early internet before jpegs of gifs could be shown. The style shows form by creating shading with different densities of numerals and dashes. I like the texture the different characters make and how it abstracts the intended image. I wanted to research this style because it links to my exploration of technological art styles. It grew out of the typewriter art movement which was popular in the 50s and used the positioning of the paper in the machine to create complex illustrations.

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To create some ASCII based art, I found an ASCII art image converter online and imported some illustrations I had already done to test out the different settings. I like the juxtaposition of technology based art with the romantic style of illustration.

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Works best with desktop in dark mode.

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A simple Streamlit app template for you to modify!

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This is an initial mindmap I made to think through concepts I had for this project. I would explore these themes through my specialist practice of illustration.

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I wanted to code a tarot app because it ties in with my theme of technology and I think the fun of tarot reading is getting drawn a specific card. This lets you relate the meaning to your current life rather than just looking at the designs. I think it’s interesting to explore the trust we have in machines and if this makes us more likely to believe a fortune or if the lack of humanity brings into focus how random and arbitrary it really is.

I coded this mainly in python because this is what I have experience using. I used Github Codespaces to code online and used the website Streamlit to turn it into an app. I coded the it to pull the card names and meanings from a csv file and choose the card reading based on random numbers it generates. I used the meaning from my Rider Waite tarot deck. For the three card reading, it redraws the card if any of the numbers are the same to make sure it draws three different cards. Also it decides if the card is reversed or not and writes the meaning to match.

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Section of code from final app and total length of code

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Section of code from final app and total length of code

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I made this moodboard to combine different styles of illustrations that I could use to visualise a tarot deck. This concept would help me explore symbolism in art and drawing simplified characters. I added a mix of older illustration styles, like works by Aubrey Beardsley, and more modern digital work. The styles I am drawn to involve captivating colour schemes, gradients and thin linework.

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For this concept, I wanted to contrast the human impulse for spirituality with a capitalist dystopia. I took imagery of technology and surveillance for this moodboard and combined it with the Rider-Waite tarot deck illustrated in 1909. I am interested by the juxtaposition of a futuristic tech aesthetic with the fairytale, Victoriana style defined by that tarot deck. I think its interesting how our minds ascribe meaning to purely random cards.

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I made this moodboard to explore the themes of childhood nostalgia and the fear growing up. I represented this by looking at old video game art. I was drawn to the pixelisation, grainy textures and use of half-tones that creates a retro look.

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Here I was looking at themes of illness and the impact that has on mental health. I used imagery of skeletons and internal organs to explore the strange relationship with your body caused by physical disabilities. I think these themes could be combined with the concept of childhood nostalgia to explore the impact of being chronically ill at a young age.

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For this collage, I wanted to look at the contrast of the harsh logic of machines and the human concepts of belief and symbolism. The styles aren't very cohesive so I don't think I will take this theme any further.

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To help me pick a final theme I got peer feedback on my concept moodboards. They were both drawn to the style of the retro games I had in the nostalgia moodboard. I think this is because the grainy textures and pastel colours create a dream-like effect. They wrote to research the wider culture of the times of the games that interest me which I hadn’t thought of. I think I am more interested in using the outdated technological style to blend future and past styles and not to route it in a specific time.

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When I visited the Design Museum I saw an exhibition on the art of Tim Burton and his films. I was interested by his character sketches and how he uses exaggerated proportions to add personality to the designs. The clothing for the characters are drawn with continuous looping lines to indicate the fabric folds. I was also drawn to the film costumes because of how the extreme silhouettes that get created with the layers of fabric and how that adds to the characters.

In his photographic collages he uses elements in intense contrasting colours to make engaging compositions.

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At the design museum, I saw the their exhibit showing the development of graphic and product design across recent history. I was drawn to a font developed for credit cards that was made to be recognised by machines, in the late 1960s, that still looks stylistically futuristic because of its proximity to technology. Its uniform line thickness and angles lines make it visually tech-based. I find it interesting how our idea of technology is routed in the past so outdated things look more futuristic than current technology.

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I saw this punch card that a loom uses to create intricate jacquard fabric. This gave me ideas for this project around how abstract technological information can become decorative art. I think it would be interesting to try to code a fortune teller which would combine the logic of machines and the human sentimentality of seeking comfort in fortunes.

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During my trip to the Design Museum, I saw a collection of Olivetti Valentine Typewriter advertisements created in 1969. I am inspired by how the airbrush-like shading is used to soften the clean blocked in shapes. I like the saturated colours and the dynamic poses of the figures. I would also like to recreate how the texture of the bleeding colours is used for the typography as well. This will help me further my project as I want to experiment with different ways to create engaging illustrations.

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This illustration was inspired by the contrasting saturated colours and compostion of the Olvetti advertisements. I wanted to experiment with using a low tonal contrast colour scheme utilising complementary colours to draw focus. I like how this gave the piece a dreamy look but I did edit the hue and saturation of the image after I finished to make it look more cohesive. I think making the edges of the shapes clean make the piece feel a lot more refined. I like how the thickness hair whips help to break up the larger silhouette and the green highlights on skin makes lighting seem ethereal.

I tried to use a large pencil brush to mimic the airbrushing technique on the Olivetti posters but I think it would look better if one edge of the fold had a sharp edge.

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As a response to the posters use of texture, I painted some ink washes to get a variety of gradient and blotchy patterns. I scanned in the textures and used clipping masks to place them over an illustration I had done of two figures. I used saturation and hue filters to create the look of skin and hair. I used Illustrator to made the texture typography to make it look like a tarot card. I like how the ink bleeding lines up with the hair. I think a more decorative font would have fit the piece better.

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I went to see an exhibition on the history of tarot in London to see how the illustrations on the cards evolved through time. I want to explore the art of fortune telling in this project so researching tarot will help me understand how the iconography developed. In the exhibition, I saw cards dating from the 1490s to modern decks commenting on the shift in culture. Most of the decks used religious or mythological symbolism to convey the meanings of the cards. They use a limited colour palette of mainly primary colours so they would be easier to reproduce. I was particularly drawn to a set of medieval cards that had half decayed but used very intricate cross hatching to add depth to the figures.

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The Rider Waite Smith tarot deck was published in 1909 with the card being designed and illustrated by Pamela Coleman Smith. She didn’t profit from the deck’s success in her lifetime and didn’t have her name attached the tarot deck until recently. I have researched this tarot deck because it is the most recognisable one, gaining large popularity in America in the 1960s and shaping the aesthetic of 20th century mysticism.

It uses a limited palette of saturated colours, mostly applied very flatly apart from small sections of cross hatching. I like how she uses thick vertical lines to show folds in cloth and her use of pattern on some of the cards.

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For this piece, I was looking at the colour scheme of the Rider-Waite-Smith deck and the use of vertical hatching as shading. I want to experiment with how modern imagery can be used to juxtapose the history within the tarot designs so I made this as a self-portrait.

I was also inspired by how stars are used as a graphic framing device and the style of font.

I think the hatching would work better with thinner lines. I experimented with different texture brushes and a paper texture for the background and I think it adds more dimension to the piece.

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I wanted to replicate the pressure variation of a traditional metal nib dip pen as a digital brush. I used the preset brush Tinderbox then removed the stabilisation and added a steeper curve to the pressure sensitivity. I don't like having to press too hard to get thick marks so this allows me to change thickness easier.

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For this illustration, I used more varied line weights to see how those marks can add depth on a simple figure. I like more mystical look and I learnt how effective light highlights can be at indicating form. I think the pressure sensitivity change helped me get more detail in the folds of the dress.

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I made this origami fortune teller because I think the social aspect and the playfulness of giving someone a fortune using it could combine well with more serious, detailed art. I drew the art with ink and acrylic markers. I am very happy with the fine detail I captured by layering different intensities of ink especially the veins on the petals. The numbers were inspired by a font I saw at the design museum because I like how the more grim futuristic design contrasts more whimsical fortunes. In the future, it would be interesting to experiment with printed lettering to contrast hand painted elements. I think the coloured ink washes look muddy and the handwriting looks messy.

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I wanted to test how ASCII art could be used in an animation so I made a short animation of an eye blinking to work looped as a GIF. I took photos of my eye blinking for reference for a quick, sketchy animation on procreate. I individually converted each frame using the website converter then imported them back into procreate to make the final animation.

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I tested out borders designs to make it look like a tarot card. I like simple border best because it doesn’t distract from the animation. I don’t like how handwritten words convert to ASCII so in the future I’ll try using pre-made fonts for the typography. I want to experiment more in future with how to make the ASCII more colourful and fun.

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I used the mosaic tiles effect on Illustrator over my previous drawing to test out different ways of exploring the look of technology for my theme. I tried playing around with aspect ratio of the tile sizes. I like the distorted effect that the long thin tiles, set to 300x5, produce. I think ascii art was a more interesting way to simplify the information  than pixel art because of the unique textures it produces.

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I used the hierophant card I drew to try out different filter effects on Illustrator. I like how the pixel texture looks in high contrast areas of the drawing like the hair. I think it works less well in areas where the form is implied by thinner line-work. I like how the pixelisation contrasts the mystical illustration. The computer effects binds the harshness of machines into the mysticism of fortune telling. I don’t like the texture overlays of the noise filter. I think it just makes illustration blurry and doesn’t add much to the themes of the card.

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I wanted to try and capture some of the textural qualities of the medieval tarot sets I saw so I made this Lino print design. I wanted to have a medieval, almost religious looking pose of a woman with the hair replaced by motherboard/PCB lines to tie in the technology element of my theme. I like how I simplified the angles of the profile and the uniform line width I managed while carving the block.

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I weaved two together that had opposite facing gradients. I love the colours together because of the the lack of tonal contrast between the paper and ink. I love how the gradients become chequered and how the weaving cuts up the design into a pixel effect. I like how the technology shown in the design is juxtaposed by the handmade quality of the print and the softness of the colours.

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I then cut two prints into strips so it would look like a glitched screen or surveillance tapes on an old monitor. I like the effect of combining different colour prints on the same paper. I think this helps keep the design clear. The blue and white on the black background feel futuristic so I like how that ties with my theme.

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Because I liked how the cutout strips pf my print embellishment added to the meaning of the design, I traced it into procreate and made a simple animation that I converted into ascii art. I think it looks quite plain without colour because of the lack of contrast so I will have to find a way to colour the ASCII textures. I don’t like how the glitched lines loop. I think because the spacing of the movement is not even it looks jittery.

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I wanted to try blender to experiment with different software. I chose to sculpt this computer that I saw in the design museum in blender because I thought would be good practice to sculpt and it fits in with the idea of retro technology styles. I had never used blender before so made this to get used to the key binds and get used to how the interface works. I made this mostly by bevelling and cutting into the default cube. I also used the grease pencil tool to add hand-drawn elements and the line art modifier to make it more stylised. I’m happy with the accuracy of the overall form. In the future, I would like to learn how to animate elements of my sculpt in blender.

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I wanted to learn how to use shaders in blender to add texture to my sculpture so I found a dithering shader online meant to mimic old video game graphics. I find the textures of out-dated graphics visually interesting because of how they had to be simplified to put up with lower processing power.

I wanted to fully test the shader so I made a quick sculpt of the table and animated a light moving across the scene. In making this, I learnt how to use keyframing in blender to move object for an animation and how to export the render using the video editing software. To use the video editing scene, you export the animation frames to a folder then import the folder into a new video editing file and render the animation again. I like how the combination of the pastel colours and the harsher pixel texture contrast each other.

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To further test how the dithering texture could be used in my illustrations, I sculpted this figure in blender to resemble early video game characters. I cut and extruded from a single cube for the body and separate cubes for the ears nose and hair for simplicity. I also wanted practice creating the form of a more complex subject and while I think I captured the overall proportions correctly I need more practice sculpting finer details.

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I like the textures of the different zoomed out pixel patterns and I like how the shadow moves across the wall. I made the figure spin just with two keyframes like I did with the light but I think it makes it seem a lot more alive. I like having the shadow colour be quite saturated. I think contrasts the harsher pixel graphics.

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I made this test of what a final card could look like. I wanted to combine coloured character illustration with ASCII textures. I’m not sure if I want to take the set tarot titles and meanings or if I will make my own set of fortune telling cards with looser definitions. I made this with the idea that I could make up my own suits for the cards and this one would be flowers. I’m not sure if I want to picture more mystical imagery that ties in with the history of tarot or create a futuristic dystopia world that the cards portray in different ways. Maybe using a wide variety of symbolism that relates to our modern reality will help balance the two.

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I tried out different colour variations and different text sizes on the ASCII generator. I was having trouble deciding between the softer, warmer colours to play into the magical aspect of tarot or the neon greens and blues for ties to technology and the internet. I made it animated with only three frames and very small movements but I think it adds a lot of life to the drawing and the low frame rate fits with the ASCII, early-internet art style. I am very happy with the texture the ASCII creates.

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I made custom pixel brushes on Procreate that were based on the dithering texture I used on blender. I wanted to make these brushes to find a way to combine the computer generated aspect of pixels with my more chaotic style of painting and further develop how I can show the technology aspect of my theme.

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I drew this portrait to test out my custom brushes. I like the texture the different brushes create especially when they overlap. I like how the bright orange works as a shadow and makes it look the the skin is glowing.

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I played around with futuristic and pixelised fonts to play into the dystopic aspect of having a machine do something so mystical and human. I will probably change the colours to fit finished cards as I don’t know the colours I will use on the final cards yet. I think the pixel fonts feel less authoritative and more like a game so I went with a more modern one.

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I made placeholder gifs for each of the cards to test the code would show the corresponding cards. This turned out to be the most complicated part of the code so was happy to get out of the way. Now I can easily replace the card images when I have completed the final designs.

I made it so cards place next to each other so the user doesn’t have to scroll down to see the later cards which is a lot more user friendly.

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I drew some thumbnail designs for a potential set of tarot cards that that just used simple animated icons that represents the meaning of the card. Each card would also be made to look like a web browser to push the idea of modern tarot cards further. I also thought the change in format to square instead of card shaped would make them feel more digital.

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I made a version of a small icon tarot card. I thought about how for tarot readings, drawing a card in reverse changes or intensifies the meaning. This which makes sense when you’re holding physical cards but because I have decided on a digital app format I think it would be better to alter parts of the design itself to show the reversed meaning. I made this blue and yellow set with reversed colours with the darker version representing the reversed card. I like this idea for my final piece but I don’t know if I will have the time to make the reversed set.

I don’t like the combination of the hand drawn hourglass with the pixel shading. It looks unfinished because not every aspect of the design is made of pixels. From making this, I learnt I want my final cards to be taller and have a more traditional tarot aspect ratio. I also want characters pictured on the cards and for them to be more detailed than just simple icons. I’d like them to be more colourful and bright and have a more modern illustrative style.

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To help me work out the overall design of my final  cards, I drew this card inspired more directly from old tarot cards. I like the combination of pixel dithering with this more sketchy style. I like how the colour adds to the mood of the card. I know I want final cards to be colourful. While the dithering brushes give me a lot more control over the shapes and colours of my illustration, I prefer the texture of the ASCII art so I will use that to make my final cards.

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I sketched out ideas for my final card designs. I am making the 22 major arcana cards present in the traditional deck because I think the more cards I make better the experience of drawing a random card feels. I want my designs to stay true to the card names and meanings from the Rider Waite Smith tarot but I will fully reimagine the imagery and symbolism of the cards. For instance, for ‘The Devil’ which is about evil and fatalities I decided to picture it as an AI surveillance system to bring the sense of an all-powerful evil into the modern day.

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I then drew all of the designs on procreate. I illustrated the cards in three shades of grey so when I convert them into ASCII there will be clear separation between the different parts of the drawing. I like the compositions of more symmetrical cards like Temperance as I think they look most like traditional tarot cards.

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I agree that the animations are very effective and I'm glad they like the colour schemes as I spent a long time different layering combinations.

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The animations would be around 6 frames for shorter ones and 14 frames for more complex movements. I tried to make them all loop as seamlessly as possible. I am very proud of some of the animations like The Lovers, Wheel of fate and The Magician. I learnt the more precisely I planned out the movement the smoother the animation turned out.

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I wanted the titles of the cards to keep the same texture as the rest of the designs so I converted all the fonts I liked into ASCII art. I tried out both futuristic and medieval style fonts to see which combined best with the cards. I chose a decorative pixel font for the final cards because the sharp edges worked well with the ASCII texture and I liked how the less modern look contrasted the digital texture.

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If I had more time I would code a section of the website where all cards are shown so users can see cards they don’t randomly draw. I also wanted to have the reversed cards be shown by displaying the design with the colours reversed but I didn’t have time to code that.