A poster for the symphony orchestra performance of music from The Legend of Zelda video game series.
The concept is pixellation as visual music, also paying homage to the original chiptune music as simple and iconic, becoming more complex over time but maintaining a strong foundation.
The first game in the Legend of Zelda series was released in 1986, when video game composers had very limited tools to work with. Because of this, every individual song had to be extremely simple and memorable. 25 years later, the music has evolved through over a dozen games, and is now being performed in a fully orchestrated four-movement symphony; but it retains its beautifully simple and iconic melodies. The music charges the gameplay experience with energy and passion; for gamers who grew up with Zelda games, the music has a powerful sense of nostalgia.
As a defining aspect of the series, music is literally power, as it can be used in-game to shape the player’s surroundings or vanquish foes. I replaced the Protagonist’s raised sword with a conductor’s baton to convey this. The pixel gradation represents the evolution of the complexity of the music, while the image and logo are still easily recognizable despite strong distortion.
