Welcome! And thank you for being here.

These cards embody the whole colour system I designed back in 2019 - the one all my work is based on. With them, I wanted to share some of the mechanics of music, and add an emotional element too: seven archetypes, each built on a triad of three notes, each note carrying its own fixed colour. My practice is highly systems-focused, and I wanted to give it a more human side. These cards grew out of that.

My system itself has stayed the same from the very beginning — a set rule, the way Western music has its tonal theory, and these cards are where it all comes together.

How to read a card

Each archetype has two parts. One shares the triad: the three notes and their individual colours, with a short description of that archetype's character. There’s the Tonic that belongs, the Dominant that drives, the Submediant that senses. The other is an artwork: a picture embodying the archetype’s nature. So one part is the theory, the cerebral part, while the other is the feeling of it, the heart of it.

A small thing worth knowing

While making these, I noticed something I hadn't planned: many of the notes and their fifths turned out to be colour opposites — complementaries! I didn't intentionally design it that way. It was already there, waiting to be found. And that's the thing I love most about this system — none of the colour is arbitrary. Every one is where it is for a reason.

Your cards — the full set of seven, each with its triad and its artwork. Print any archetype at home straight from the PDF: just print the page you'd like, and you've got your card.

A bonus — a poster of all seven archetypes together, the whole scale in one view. It's made to be seen large, so it looks its best printed A3 at a print shop, or simply enjoyed on screen.