Incendiary poster series creates its designs with special pyrotechnic powder

Named Affiches Artifices, this set of 12 posters pairs incredible geometric designs with the kind of visual spectacle you would usually see on Bonfire Night or New Year's Eve. When lit, the flames follow carefully placed trails of chemical powders before bursting into a dazzling and colourful shower of sparks.

It's such a simple but effective design that's so good we can't believe it hasn't been done before. And it's all the more impressive because the specially treated paper doesn't crumple up and burn away in the process. Once the flames have run their course, the posters still retain their original design, albeit with some faint scorch marks running through them. Watch all the posters in action with the specially shot video below.

"Affiches Artficices started with our fascination for all the ingenuity of the invisible chemistry and chain reactions happening inside fireworks that we found in old fireworks drawing," says the studio, which has a preoccupation with experimenting with technologies all around us. "We wanted it to be part of the spectacle.

"As 'pyrotechnic ink' doesn't exist as such, we spend a lot of time in our workshop looking for the right way of mixing and printing such chemicals. After hundreds of failed attempts, we finally found the right way."

This period of trial and error resulted in five effects that became the design palette. Slow-burning powders created yellow, red and blue flames. Meanwhile, other powders created a rapid burning flame and a sparkle effect. When placed on the designs carefully, they created lively pathways for fire to traverse.

"The visuals and sound effects are physically programmed on paper directly, depending on the length and path of gunpowder," adds the studio. "So we designed the graphics both for their aesthetic value and the animation it will then produce."