About The Deity Project

The Deity Project is a living encyclopedia of the sacred, and a shop. It gathers the gods, goddesses, saints, bodhisattvas and holy figures of the world's traditions: who they are, how to recognise them, the names they are called by, their stories and their feast days, with sources.

It began on the Mazu pilgrimage in Taiwan in 2023, among pilgrims walking through the night and t-shirts that were joyful, commercial and sacred all at once. Its belief is simple: Sabka Malik Ek, one source, many names. No tradition is treated as more or less worthy than another.

How the designs are made

Every design starts from the iconography in the figure's encyclopedia entry: what their tradition shows, and what it never shows. Drafts are made with the help of AI image tools, checked against those rules, and approved by a person before they become products. Wording is set by hand in real type, never generated inside the art. Some traditions do not picture certain figures at all; for them we make no images, and their entries say why.

What's here, and what isn't

Each figure is shown as their tradition allows. A cinnabar seal stands in until an entry's painted portrait is approved. We make no images of God in Islam, Judaism or Sikhism, or of the Prophet Muhammad; their entries show calligraphy, architecture and sacred places instead. Gallery pictures are public-domain works from museums and archives. New traditions and figures are added a few at a time, in roadmap order.

Three styles

Cute designs follow the cheerful Q版 cartoon style of Taiwan's temple stickers. Vintage designs look like worn screen-print posters. Portraits are painted in each figure's own devotional tradition and sold as art prints.

Printed to order

Shirts and prints are made to order, so nothing is wasted on unsold stock. Sacred figures only ever go on tops, prints and similar items, never on anything worn below the waist, on footwear, or on anything meant for the floor.

Questions, corrections and suggestions are welcome: get in touch.