2015

Art shouldn't stay on the wall

PAXYZ began as a clothing idea. In 2015 our founder, Leo Zadeh, wanted a shirt that could carry a picture. He made one with a long strip of printed art that attached along the hem and came off again. That tall, narrow panel of art, something you could wear, swap and collect, is the shape everything since has been built on.

June 25, 2020

A painting on a basketball court

The first four courts I tried that day were full. The fifth, at an elementary school in Port Coquitlam, was empty. A child's watercolour was lying on the asphalt, torn in two. I fitted the halves together: a black ring on a yellow field, under a blue sky. I had spent four years on one idea by then, and I took it as a sign to keep going.

Leo Zadeh, founder

Leo framed the painting that day. Its yellow, its blue and its black ring are on the back of every PAXYZ piece. We don't know who painted it. If it was you, we'd love to hear from you.

2021

Twenty-two

A year later Leo came across numerology and worked out his number: 22. In the tarot he recognised himself in the Fool, the card of someone who leaps first. The Major Arcana has 22 cards, and the Fool begins it. That settled what the first PAXYZ collection would be.

1909 to 2022

An old deck, seen wider

Our first collection begins with the tarot Pamela Colman Smith illustrated in 1909. She drew all 78 cards for a small flat fee and no royalties, and for decades the deck was sold under its publisher's and author's names instead of hers. Today her work belongs to everyone, and her name is part of ours.

At first we commissioned new versions of the cards from more than ten artists. A handful of designs in, it was clear that was the wrong idea. Smith's drawings didn't need replacing. They needed room. So each PAXYZ design keeps her card as she drew it and extends the scene above and below, into a tall 2.75 × 9 inch frame.

In September 2021 the illustrator Raven Quinn sent in her first two designs, Judgement and Death. She and Leo went on to work through all 22 Major Arcana, one card at a time, and the First Edition was printed in 2022.

Human hands only

Every PAXYZ design is drawn by a human artist. No generative AI touches our art or design. A drawing holds the time, choices and small imperfections of the person who made it, and that's what we want you to hold.

Made to be found

We'd rather be found than advertised. PAXYZ turns up the way good things do: tucked inside a book, traded between friends, spotted across a room. Keep one. Pass one on.

What comes next

Cups, Swords and Wands are drawn. Pentacles is next, and with it the full 78. Story Packs arrive in 2027. After that come pieces you wear, in the works since 2015. We'll show you when they're ready.