Prayer cards, or holy cards, have been used for centuries as small symbols of protection that are easy to carry around. Depicting an image on one side, and a prayer on the other side, I took the idea of the cards to a digital format replacing the holy images with AI generated images of my own ancestors (when available, by using old existing photos). I dug deep into their personal stories in search of their strengths as an attempt to remember their stories and the qualities within my own family line that can serve me as passed down “blessings” in the present (ex. the ancestor that was very good at making money for good fortune in wealth, or the ancestor that had faced many difficulties successfully for troubled times).

For this project, I also created a custom font which would allow me to keep the texts aligned with the pixel-style illustrations used throughout. Cryptospells is a monospace pixelated font available only in full caps and with limited glyphs.

Just enough to cast spells.

I created brightly coloured and heavily ornamented illustrations reminiscent of the original cards, but used a pixel style to keep the digital aspect of the project present. I then interchanged the texts with small animations of the photos as if the card was being flipped to from image to prayer side.

My hope is to be able to expand this project by creating these cards for other people with their own ancestors and their histories so they can be passed around as a kind of continuation of the holy cards, in this case, for the digital and AI age.