Symphonie Fantastique - 220th Anniversary of Hector Berlioz’s Birth
Poster, Calligraphy, Lettering, Typeface, Print, 2023
Creative Director: Alex
Art Director: Alex
Designer: Alex
Client: Musée Hector-Berlioz
2023 is the 220th anniversary of the birth of French composer Hector Berlioz (1803-1869). To commemorate this special year, I designed this series of posters for Musée Hector-Berlioz with the theme of “Symphonie Fantastique”.
“Symphonie Fantastique” is the most influential work of Berlioz. The symphony describes a series of fantasies from the composer about his dream lover in the form of program music: from longing to meeting to doubting to killing and then to destruction, it fully expresses the changes of individual emotions, forming a sharp difference with the grand narrative characteristics of previous symphonies. On the technical level, this symphony also embodies Berlioz’s bold innovations in orchestral grammar: imaginative melody and harmony, subversive orchestration timbre, and “fixed idea” throughout each movement, etc… The birth of this work marks the opening of romantic music.
There are five posters in this series, corresponding to the five movements of “Symphonie Fantastique”. I designed the titles of the five movements starting from the form of typography, among them, different type design methods such as calligraphy, lettering and typeface design are used to respond to the humanism and delicate ingenuity of the composition and arrangement of the music. The posters are printed on art papers of different colors, and combined with the 3D effects in the picture and different hot stamping techniques, using strong sense of texture to echo the Berlioz’s extreme attempt on the sound of musical instruments, and also conveys the rich emotions of longing, beauty, desolation, weirdness, and madness of the music. Just as the titles of the movement describe the music, I designed the shape of titles and arrange the layout to express the content and emotion of the music it conveys.
2023年是法國作曲家埃克托·柏遼茲（1803-1869）誕辰220周年，為紀念這個特殊年份，我以《幻想交響曲》作為主題為柏遼茲故居博物館設計了這組系列海報。
《幻想交響曲》是柏遼茲最有影響力的一部作品，樂曲以標題音樂的形式描述了作曲家對夢中人的一系列幻想：從憧憬到遇見到懷疑到殺害再到毀滅，充分表達了個體情感的變化，與以往交響樂宏大敘事的特點形成鮮明的差異；在技巧層面，這部作品也體現了柏遼茲對管弦樂語法的大膽創新：充滿想象力的旋律與和聲、顛覆的配器音色以及貫穿每個樂章的固定樂思等等…這部交響曲的誕生標誌著浪漫主義音樂的正式開啟。
這組系列海報一共有五張，對應著《幻想交響曲》的五個樂章。海報以字體編排的形式出發，對五個樂章的標題進行設計，其中運用了西文書法、手繪文字和字形設計等不同的文字設計手法，回應樂曲在作曲與編曲上的人本主義和細膩巧思；海報的印刷選用了不同顏色的藝術紙，並結合畫面中的三維效果搭配不同燙印工藝，以鮮明質感來呼應作曲家對樂器音色的極限嘗試，也傳遞出曲中憧憬、美妙、淒涼、詭異、癲狂的豐富情緒。正如樂章標題對樂曲的描述，這組海報對樂章標題進行字體設計和編排，以視覺方式來表現其傳達出的有關樂曲的內容與情感。
