The cards are based off the 1834 poem Love’s Apperition and Evanishment: An Allegoric Romance by Samuel Taylor Coleridge. The poem is about the fading of love and the death of hope for that love being rekindled. The cards are designed so that they can be

arranged and work in any combination. However, I chose the arrangement above because the two hand cards appear to be reaching out to each other. The distance and separation of the images relates to the distant and isolated feelings described within the poem.

Desiring to give a subtle nod to the age of the poem, I chose to use Baskerville. I used the hand-drawn Baskerville italic to evoke feelings of a handwritten love letter.

The pattern was inspired by a line in the poem that talks about gardens and wilting flowers. Clouds seen throughout the cards are a motif inspired by the idea of Love personified by the poem as a spirit of the air (Sylph). Fading is a recurring motif throughout the system, echoing the poem’s theme of love fading over time.