Annual programme for the Théâtre musical de Besançon. This time I completely dropped ITC Bodoni, to compose the whole programme in Mononi. Gradients appear inside the text, thanks to the wonderful stochastic print of Simon Imprimeurs.

Programme of the 3rd edition of Musiques de Rues, a festival of contemporary brass bands and artistic interventions in public space. Printed in 3 fluorescent colors + black, instead of CMYK

Le Théâtre musical de Besançon (dir. Loïc Boissier) was created in 2008: it occupies Besançon Municipal Theater, an exceptional building by Claude-Nicolas Ledoux. The theater is designed according to a very innovative circular plan for the time (1786), which made it possible, in Ledoux's initial project, to see the scene from everywhere. This aspect is represented in a famous engraving, “View of the Besançon Theater in an eye”. This eye and the circle are the basis of the visual identity that I designed for the Theater. To illustrate the richness and variety of its programming, an extensive color code (which covers the entire spectrum) makes it possible to identify the different registers. The character used is the Bodoni ITC, from Sumner Stone, my favorite digital revival of the typeface cut by Giambattista Bodoni in the same year as the construction of this theater. It’s been progressively replaced by my own revival, shown here in the logotype : Mononi, a mono-linear Bodoni.

The visual identity of the Théâtre musical was based on an eye. In June 2012, the Scène nationale de Besançon joined two theatres, the Théâtre musical (Théâtre Ledoux, which interiors are all blue) and the Théâtre de l’Espace (all red), in one single institution. To communicate on this major change, I proposed to design a new identity in two spot colors, blue and red, and use anaglyphic glasses two see what’s happening in one place or the other: it was time to use both eyes. Text appears or disappears in the blink of an eye ! In the Pre-programme for the season 2012-2013, Nicolas Waltefaugle did a photo shoot in the stage decor workshop with the whole new team. Photographs are superposed too, to create mini-animations. 40,000 anaglyphic glasses were distributed with the booklets, and we even designed some fancy pairs with Adélaïde Racca. 32 pages