Chromatika Tarot

Chromatika Tarot - Bauhaus and surrealism meet the RWS system

Most tarot cards show you what they mean. The Chromatika Tarot does something different: it hides meaning inside images you have to decode yourself. Federico Babina, Italian architect and graphic designer, built a deck that draws on Bauhaus aesthetics, surrealism, and the avant-garde, then layers that visual language over the familiar Rider-Waite-Smith system.

The result is a deck that offers no step-by-step guidance from the image alone. It works through signs, icons, symbols, and colour codes. Every archetype is there, but you have to find it.

What you see on the cards

Babina works with bold lines and a tightly controlled graphic vocabulary. His background in architecture shows in how he handles composition and space. There are no soft, romantic illustrations here. The cards have the quality of a design drawing: precise, intentional, and at times enigmatic.

Hidden inside each image are references to the classic tarot meanings, but rendered in graphic code. That demands more than a passing glance. You look, you recognise something, and then you look again.

What sets this deck apart

This is not a deck where the image tells you what it means. The RWS foundation is genuinely there, but Babina consistently chooses evocation over illustration. That makes the Chromatika Tarot stand out within Lo Scarabeo's catalogue, which typically leans toward more accessible, illustrative decks.

The 128-page guidebook provides support for reading the symbolism. Without that context, the visual language is abstract enough that most people will need it to work with the cards.

Use the guidebook before you look at the card, not after. Babina's graphic language needs a key, and that key is in the book.

About Federico Babina

Federico Babina is an architect and graphic designer based in Italy. He regularly publishes illustrated work that brings together architecture, culture, and art history in concise graphic series. His work has appeared in international publications and exhibitions. More at FedericoBabina.com.

The Chromatika Tarot fits naturally into that body of work. It is not a sidestep into tarot but a direct application of his way of seeing and drawing to a well-established symbolic system.

Specifications

• Number of cards: 78
• Guidebook: 128 pages
• Language: English
• ISBN: 9780738784823
• Publisher: Lo Scarabeo
• Publication date: August 2026
• Author and illustrator: Federico Babina
• System: Rider-Waite-Smith

Questions we often get

Is this a good first tarot deck?
The Chromatika Tarot is based on the Rider-Waite-Smith system, but its visual language departs significantly from the classic illustrated cards. The 128-page guidebook explains the symbolism, but the deck asks more from the viewer than a standard illustrative deck does.

What language are the cards and guidebook in?
Both the cards and the guidebook are in English.