Promptkoi

AI Prompts for Tarot Cards

Tarot card design is one of the few AI illustration tasks where tradition is the feature, not a constraint. A tarot deck has seventy-eight cards, each with a fixed name, a canonical symbol set, and a visual lineage stretching from fifteenth-century woodcuts to Art Nouveau and contemporary indie decks. The best tarot prompts lean into that lineage — asking for specific artistic traditions (Marseille, Rider-Waite-Smith, Art Nouveau, minimalist) and naming the card's symbolic elements explicitly rather than hoping the model remembers that The Star features a figure pouring water from two vessels. The recurring failure mode is text: every card carries a title, and no diffusion model can render clean lettering at card scale, so every prompt here leaves a blank banner panel and asks for no text. The second failure is counting — asking for "eight stars" produces four or twelve, so the prompts describe hierarchy ("one large star, scattered smaller stars") instead of giving a number. Every entry includes the aspect ratio, palette, and border treatment needed for a printable deck.

Prompts in this collection

Frequently asked questions

What makes a prompt good for tarot card design?
Name the artistic tradition (Marseille, Rider-Waite, Art Nouveau, minimalist), describe the card's key symbols explicitly, and always include 'no text, no letters, no numerals' with a blank banner panel for the title. Diffusion models garble lettering at card scale, so leave the card name to be typeset afterwards.
What aspect ratio works for tarot cards?
Standard tarot cards are roughly 2.75 × 4.75 inches, which maps to a 2:3 aspect ratio. Generate at the highest resolution your model supports so the printed linework stays crisp. Portrait orientation is non-negotiable — landscape tarot cards do not exist in any traditional deck.
Can I sell an AI-generated tarot deck?
You can sell a printed or digital deck, but raw AI output generally cannot be copyrighted in most jurisdictions. Build a unique deck by curating seventy-eight cards around a consistent artistic vision, writing your own guidebook, and adding original packaging. The prompts give you the art; the product is the curation and the companion text.
Why do my tarot cards have garbled text on them?
Because every diffusion model struggles with lettering. The fix is to prompt for 'no text, no letters, no numerals, a blank banner panel at the bottom' and then typeset the card title yourself in Illustrator or Canva. Never ask the model to write 'THE STAR' or any other word on the card.

Related guides

How-tos and prompt collections that go deeper on tarot cards.