Announcing the Revised & Refined SECOND EDITION of THE ARTHUR RACKHAM ORACLE, now funding at Kickstarter. The original and still the best now aims to deliver New Magic and Better Quality at less than half the price of the original edition!  Please visit the new Kickstarter campaign and consider pre-ordering your copy. Your participation will determine the final appearance of the deck! Visit the campaign for details!

ROOTED IN STORYTELLING TRADITION

This deep and fanciful pack has its own unique symbology and the rich old-world flavor of European fantasy. It is an open-ended divination system not derived from the Tarot or Lenormand, but containing elements of both. Our first priority in the deck’s creation was to treat the artwork with the respect that it deserves. 

Always using the images as a starting point, the oracle grew out of the art, with card meanings that reflected, as nearly as possible, the characteristics inherent in the in the original drawings and the stories that they were meant to illustrate. At no time did we attempt to shoe-horn the art into an existing framework; unlike other decks derived from Rackham’s art, this allowed us to feature the work as it was originally created, without cropping, altering or editing Rackham’s work in any way.

THE ONLY CHANGES MADE TO THE ARTWORK consist of cleaning, brightening and restoring the images to their original lustre.

Visit the campaign here: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1911920092/the-arthur-rackham-oracle-revised-and-refined-2nd

Thank you!

-- Thorn

www.tarotbyducksoup.com

www.ducksoup.me

Everything Old is New

In the 40^th year of doing … stuff under the name of Duck Soup Productions, Big Changes are happening , both visible and behind the scenes. Tarot by Duck Soup has moved into new, shinier and better-functioning lodgings (although you can enter the new building through the same old address, www.tarotbyducksoup.com), and the Soup Can logo that has appeared on this site in various incarnations has been dusted off and given a much more refined look.

It served me well for about 25 years, even though its imperfections were obvious (to me at least). It was the best that I could manage at the time. But since this is the 40th year that Duck Soup Productions has been around in one form or another, I decided a new and better version was apropos… for one thing, I have better tools now. For another, I know how to use them better. I began by doing a complete re-design of the label in Photoshop, all the way down to and including re-drawing the duck from scratch. No more shaky lines or obvious boo-boos!

Using a vintage soup label as my guide, I filled in the overall label design so that it would be complete all the way around, and gave it a more authentic look. Then in Adobe Dimensions I wrapped it around a three-dimensional object, and the result is something with a lot more versatility and a much less amateurish appearance. What do you think? So you can see the difference, I’ve put it alongside the old version. 

I doubt very much whether historians will look at my stuff and use the logo change to date my output, the way they use changes in the wording of the Disney corporate identity to date Mickey Mouse collectibles (the earliest of which appeared under the “Walt E. Disney” brand, then “Walt Disney Enterprises,” and finally Walt Disney Productions”); still, in the 40^th year that I’ve sort-of been doing this Thing, whatever it is, it feels nice and right to me to dust off the old logo and give it a bright, shiny new face.

— Thorn.

www.ducksoup.me

www.tarotbyducksoup.com