Myths and Morals
CARD DESIGN · VISUAL SYSTEMS · ETHICAL STORYTELLING
A visual card system that translates ethical principles, moral dilemmas, and cultural myths into an accessible game-based format.
CONCEPT
Myths and Morals transforms abstract ethical concepts into a visual card system built around stories from mythology, literature, religion, and cultural traditions. Each card connects a moral principle to a recognisable narrative, making complex ideas such as justice, responsibility, manipulation, and equality easier to interpret through visual storytelling. The game structure introduces comparison and interaction, allowing ethical ideas to be explored as relationships rather than isolated definitions.
PROCESS
The process began by mapping ethical concepts to stories, myths, and cultural references with similar moral meanings. The main challenge was maintaining conceptual clarity while working across very different traditions and narrative sources.
A colour-coded category system was developed to help players distinguish between different types of moral concepts. Consistent borders, icons, typography, and card structures created continuity across a visually diverse set of illustrations
Each card was structured around a title, visual narrative, explanatory text, category marker, and symbolic icon. Repeated iterations focused on improving hierarchy and ensuring that the illustration supported the ethical concept rather than functioning as decoration alone.
FINAL WORK
The final set combines ethical theory, cultural storytelling, and game mechanics within one visual system. Although each card uses a different narrative reference, the shared layout and category structure allow the full collection to remain coherent and readable. The result is a flexible card set that introduces moral concepts through comparison, interpretation, and play.
REFLECTION
Myths and Morals was an exploration of how complex ethical ideas could be made more approachable through visual storytelling and play. Building a large card system required me to organise different moral concepts, cultural narratives, and visual categories within one consistent structure. The project pushed me to balance individual expression with system coherence and to think carefully about how illustrations, colour families, icons, and explanatory text worked together. It also made me more aware of the responsibility involved in representing stories from different cultures and the importance of clarity, sensitivity, and source validation.
