La Finta Giardiniera Opera

I designed the poster and programme for the Royal Irish Academy of Music’s annual opera in 2018. I wanted to capture the idea of the monster within – the monster being the dark side of love, that can make you do crazy things. By combining custom portraits with large, bold, overwhelming text I wanted to capture the madness and exuberance portrayed in the opera. The use of a contemporary sans-serif typeface juxtaposed to the 18th century paintings, highlights the old and the new, mirrored in the set and costume design. There are seven versions of the programme, with a portrait representing each of the characters. Traditional 18th century portraits are merged with glitched images of typically romantic scenes such as a sunset, candlelit dinner, roses. As well as more sinister images like fire and an erupting volcano.