Title treatment and poster design for a proposed production of Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead by Tom Stoppard.
A mixture of fraktur- and western-style type was used for the title to evoke both the setting of the play's base material (Shakespeare's Hamlet) and the somewhat wild nature of the play itself.
The key art is based on traditional medieval woodblock pressings, as well as the baroque character illustration style found on classic playing cards. These characters represent Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, who over the course of the play, come to discover that their fate is meaningless and that they are merely cards to be played by "main" characters like Hamlet. The symbols of hanging and coin flipping are found throughout the play's text and evoke concepts of luck and nihilism.