Sleep No More

Created by British theatre company, Punchdrunk, the critically acclaimed Sleep No More is an immersive, site–specific production of MacBeth, as viewed through a noir lens. Emursive, their New York production company, asked to us to design business cards for The McKittrick Hotel, and playing cards that are handed out to Sleep No More attendees when they check in.

We identified multiple functions for the playing cards: as an introduction to the world of Sleep No More, an integral mechanism for managing audience flow—splitting up groups to enhance anonymity and a sense of strangeness—and finally as memento which fans use to spread word of the production by sharing their playing cards on social media.

We worked closely with Punchdrunk set designers to explore a variety of themes and styles to compliment the SNM visual language, and worked through an iterative, critical process to assure that the artwork supported the SNM brand and experience. We combined key elements into collages and unified them stylistically with illustrations by Marco De Luca, creating a look inspired by antique playing cards. Developing a full set of playing cards allowed us to explore our affinity for systems and frameworks.

We later adapted these cards to produce a series of large-scale limited edition prints—lllustrated, designed, and letterpress printed in-house. The letterpress prints and the full deck of cards are available for sale on their online gift store.

We did: Graphic Design, Letterpress Printing