Posters and publicity 1929 : Fine printing and design. — London, 1930

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Introduction. By the Editors ... 3

 

Photography in Advertising. By Errell ... 13

Illustrations ... 17-40

 

A Review of Poster Advertising in 1929. By Tom Purvis ... 41

Illustrations ... 43-84

 

A Review of Press Advertising in 1929. By C. Harold Vernon ... 87

Illustrations ... 91-130

 

Booklets in 1929. By Tolmer ... 133

Illustrations ... 137-164

 

ILLUSTRATIONS IN COLOUR

Ernst L. Franke. Poster for Vienna Fair ... 49

H. S. Williamson. Poster for London’s Underground ... 59

Jean Dupas. Poster for Arnold Constable ... 65

Michel Bouchaud. Poster for Monte Carlo ... 75

Elmer O. Tetzlaff. Folder for Meyer-Rotier-Tate Co. ... 85

Edouard Benito. Folder for Stehli Silks ... 85

London Press Exchange. Booklet for Lines Bros. ... 95

Hungarian Box Wrappings ... 101

Robert Leonard. Booklets for Celanese Corporation of America ... 111

Reco Capey. Box Wrapping for Yardley & Co., Ltd. ... 121

James Fitton and H. J. Hutchison. Booklet for Godfrey Davies & Co. ... 131

L. Kozma. Box Wrapping for Bonbonnerie Floris ... 145

Elmer O. Tetzlaff. Folder for Meyer-Rotier-Tate Co. ... 155

 

ILLUSTRATIONS IN TWO COLOURS ... 17-24 and 33-40

 

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One of the best criticisms of the tendency in advertisement design was given in one of the innumerable favourable notices of last year’s “Posters and Publicity.” The writer of this notice pointed out that what was really helping commerce in advertising design was a sense of formal composition. By this he meant not a formula or a conventionalised pattern, but really the efficient organisation of space, making the fullest use possible of order, balance, repetition, geometrical harmony; principles which the artist, and particularly the modern artist, continually employs to create effect and which hold good for advertising though here they require the greater emphasis and definition which is proper to advertising.

 

The layman, too, often does not realise that there is a science in art and that this occupation requires a strictly defined set of conditions in order that the scientific problem may evolve itself. But directly a certain material or mode of expression is adopted a scientific operation begins. Even the oil painter is governed by a rectangular fiat area of given dimensions. He must preserve the flatness even though he gives the intellectual idea of relief. He must make his work complete within the given dimensions and appropriate to them in scale. If he works in oil paint he must obey the peculiar dictates of oil paint. If he uses line then his work must essentially be line and not an imitation of tone.

 

In advertising design there is a double science; that which every genuine artist must possess, and that of selling goods. In a fine advertisement the two sciences fuse together and become indistinguishable, and indeed nowadays they cannot be considered separately. Art may be considered technically as the organisation of space, advertising as the direction of a given space to the achievement of a practical aim. The soldier learns to hold his rifle steadily, to repeat the action of loading and unloading until it becomes second nature, to adjust the sights, to care for the mechanism until it becomes in a sense a part of his being. Order and precision dictate all his movements ; and then all that remains is that he train his eye on a target and hit it.

 

To attempt to hit the target with a weapon that is no weapon, of which the would-be marksman does not know the capabilities, was the attempt of the old-fashioned advertisement which combined a pretty landscape with the announcement of X cocoa or Y soap and hoped for the best. This year’s survey of publicity indicates that we are moving rapidly away from this absurd conception and that the organisation of space and means and their exact direction to the end required is being grasped to a greater extent than ever before. The distinguishing characteristics of the best of these advertisements is precision, completeness, order and logical connection with the goods advertised. The surprising thing to anyone not au fait with the most essential needs of advertising is the success with which the most modern forms of art may be employed to sell goods. That it is not really surprising or a fluke lies in the fact that the modern technique is, contrary to vague general opinion, scientific.

 

Let us take, for example, photography, which this year forms a special section and on which a famous German expert has written.

 

The old type of advertising photograph was just a photograph added to an announcement without any special features. The new type is photography that is an essential part of the whole announcement; a photography of varied angles, of composite views, combined in abstract shapes with lettering that has been specially designed to accompany it. The old type of photograph corresponded exactly to the old type of realistic picture. The new has definite arguments to put forward, arguments which it is flexible enough to express in an infinite variety of formal ways, and which link it up, not with any product of the kind photographed, but with the product that is advertised. Its connection, as Herr Errell points out, with the cinema, the most popular art of our time, is obvious, and from the examples now grouped together for the first time the innumerable possibilities it promises for the future should be apparent.

 

Mr. Harold Vernon, in his introduction on press advertising, equally stresses the importance of completeness and points out the necessity of careful and well-chosen typography. Here again we see how advertising art is stretching out from the old pictorial conception to embrace every feature of publicity. The cry is always “Organise, Organise”! and no advertisement is finished until every part of it is at one with the other components. The type is not distinct from whatever drawing may accompany it. It must, in size, spacing and design, help to “give it a kick”; and the copy itself must get rid of a lot of literary nonsense and assume this brief, concentrated power in order to complete the design from a mental point of view.

 

Mr. Tom Purvis points out the danger in poster design of repetition, and M. Tolmer in his introduction to the “Booklet Section” also illuminates the question by making a distinction between true and false modernity. Experiment is essential. We cannot run the risk of allowing advertisement to ossify; and design must move with the pace of modern life itself, continually adapting and improving itself and changing to meet altered conditions. This is the safeguard against false modernity.

 

The editors feel that this year’s “Posters,” on the whole, does mark a forward step in the history of publicity and that it contains many new and good things which will help to maintain this forward march. The photography section is something not previously attempted. The posters and press advertisement represent creditable progressive tendencies, while M. Tolmer’s own layouts in the booklet section should appeal to every advertising man by their ingenuity and taste.

 

 

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