Codex Obscurus — Spiridon

The CODEX series Features popular folkloric themes from around the world

CODEX Obscurus is a collective artbook featuring the work of 145 artists from around the world. Their artwork depicts a range of material, including folkloric themes from the artists’ home countries or their own interpretations of the occult.

Alongside the artbook, I am also publishing a Tarot deck in the same style, featuring an extended 26-card Major Arcana deck, all created by the exceptional artist and designer Viktor Pushkarev, who also created the book’s cover.

To celebrate the release of CODEX Obscurus, Viktor is also offering a limited selection of handmade prints. These will be offered exclusively through this Kickstarter campaign so be sure to pledge for yours while stock lasts.

The Jury

Abigail Larson • Angi Pauly Llobet • Armand Serrano • Bastien Deharme • Iris Compiet • Justine Florentino • Karla Ortiz • Pauline Voss • Thabiso Mhlaba • Yangtian Li • Yoann Lossel

Current lineup

I could talk at length about everything that went into the making of this project but it would be easier to break it down into a few key decisions.

I strongly believe artbooks should be printed and bound as hardcover books, and that softcover printing should be reserved for magazines (or art zines). As such, I knew from the start that CODEX needed to be a hardcover book.

It was also important to me to not overstuff this book with as much art as I could fit into it. I felt that would later leave me with the dilemma of having to filter through all the work to try to find images that suited each other enough stylistically to be grouped together. Instead, I chose to keep every left page blank for the optional addition of text or descriptions. This way, every piece of artwork has been given its own space to breathe and leave an even deeper impression on the reader.

In regards to the specs, the book is A4 in size, 304 pages long, and bound with a rounded spine. The cover is debossed, wrapped in soft, white leatherette, and decorated with gold foil. The art inside the book itself is printed on 150g paper.

I wanted to give the book a clean and modern yet simultaneously traditional appearance, inspired by early printmaking practices such as woodcuts and letterpress.

Just like the cover of the book, the Tarot card deck was created by typographer and designer Viktor Pushkarev. It depicts the Major Arcana cards plus four extra cards that complete Viktor’s vision of the Glarunika alphabet — an original melange of runes, pre-Cyrillic Glagolitic script, and Arabic numerals — which he specially designed. But more about that later...

Viktor took his time studying the history of Tarot: when it was used, by whom, and why. His studies culminated in a deck of 26 cards, created to correspond with his Glarunika alphabet. Numbers play a big role in this deck and are visible not only as Arabic numerals but also through the inclusion of the Hebrew alphabet and symbolic, numerical usage of symbols such as stars and skulls.

This adds options for how the Tarot deck can be used, how names can be decrypted, and meanings that can be unlocked. All this will be explained in the booklet included with the cards, which are made from high-quality playing card stock, both in a beautifully designed two-piece box.

Viktor has created all his CODEX designs and typeface using a unique mix of traditional and modern tools. He combined linoleum cutting with digital mediums, traditional printing methods, and gold leaf embellishments. There are only a limited number of handmade prints available in this campaign and any collector of handmade art will certainly find them worth owning.

It was important to me to make sure the book itself was an adequate vessel for all the artwork it contains, and Viktor did a perfect job in achieving thematically consistent concepts. Within the space of a week, he managed to carve multiple cover variations until we settled on the right one that we felt had the right perspective and carried the right meaning and tone.

Aside from his Glarunika font, he also created several other fonts which have not been used in the final product, with the exception of one very interesting recreation of an authentic two-style font from a 1689 book that is also used in the headlines of this campaign.