The Grand Duke

Created as part of the branding for a local Gilbert & Sullivan troupe’s 2021-2022 production of The Grand Duke, these designs (created primarily for a t-shirts) are meant to be viewed as the front and back of a playing card. The operetta’s plot centers around two main characters’ statutory duel, where playing cards are drawn instead of swords to determine who “lives” and who “dies.”

The front design portrays these characters as the face cards they draw, a King and an Ace. Limited to one color for printing, I worked to create contrast with detail and spacing.

As an experiment with isometric grids within Affinity Designer, I created this poster as a side project.