Twice Told Tarot
The Twice Told Tarot is a Tarot deck created by Travis McHenry in 2022.
Artwork
The deck was illustrated by David Scaglione, a theater professor, makeup artist, and production designer living in Southern California. David had been drawing since he was young and he was challenged to create this deck using only pen and ink, literally crafting the entire world of the Tarot with simple lines and cross-hatching. Every image was hand-drawn by David, then scanned on a high resolution scanner to capture every possible detail in his work.
The intent of the illustrations was to create a Tarot that was easy to read and understand and was light enough to be used every day.
World card
One unique feature of the deck is that the World card is in horizontal orientation instead of vertical orientation like the rest of the deck. The reason for this design choice was to reinforce the idea that the World encapsulates all the other cards of the tarot, while setting it apart from the Major Arcana.
Development
During the Covid-19 pandemic lockdown, Scaglione began sharing his sketches on Instagram. McHenry saw these and felt they had potential to be turned into a deck of tarot cards.
They began working together to craft the deck and by early 2022, the design and concept was finalized with a prospective launch date of fall 2022.
Publication
The Twice Told Tarot was launched on Kickstarter on 3 October 2022 by Bloodstone Studios, but the campaign barely surpassed its goal of $10,000 and seemed to have stalled out during its second week. McHenry made the difficult decision to cancel the project.
The deck was later offered as a hidden add-on with the True Oracle of Nostradamus Kickstarter campaign. Over 80 people purchased the deck through this method with an additional 100 pre-sale wholesale orders before the deck was printed and offered to the general public.
The Twice Told Tarot was finally published in June 2023 in a limited edition of only 300 copies.