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Austin Cooper
A direct application of cubism can be seen in this poster for the Southern Railway, by Austin Cooper which attempts to spark memories of the viewer’s earlier Continental visits by presenting fragments and glimpses of landmarks in Paris. -
Collage
During their brief collaboration, James Pryde and William Nicholson developed a new technique that was later named collage. Cut pieces of paper were moved around, changed, and pasted into position on board. The resulting style of absolutely flat planes of color had sensitive edges “drawn” with scissors. -
The Beggarstaffs poster for Harper’s Magazine
Their 1895 poster uses the collage technique. The viewer brings closure by combining fragments into a symbolic image. -
Plakatstil
The reductive, flat-color design school that emerged in Germany early in the twentieth century is called Plakatstil (poster style). Lucian Bernhard inspired this design approach that emerged in Germany early in the twentieth century. -
The Beggarstaffs
Brothers-in-law James Pryde and William Nicholson, both respected academic painters, opened an advertising design studio in 1898. To protect their reputations as artists, they took on the pseudonym, The Beggarstaffs. -
Sachplakat
Also known as "Plakatstil". The works of Niklaus Stoecklin, Otto Baumberger, and Herbert Leupin, which were characterized by a simple, laconic, and sometimes hyperrealistic approach, were called Sachplakat because they featured individual objects as the main subject. -
Ludwig Hohlwein
Ludwig Hohlwein of Munich began his career as a graphic illustrator with work commissioned by Jugend magazine as early as 1904. James Pryde and William Nicholson was his initial inspiration; Hitler’s ideas gained a visual presence through his work as the repetition of his images reinforced Nazi propaganda. His work moved toward a bold, imperial, and militaristic style of tight, heavy forms and strong, tonal contrasts. -
Priester Matches poster
The approach began with Bernhard’s 1905 Priester matches poster, which responded to the communications needs of World War I as well as the formal innovations of cubism. -
Posters
The poster reached the zenith of its importance as a communications medium during World War I (1914–18). Posters were used to recruit soldiers and to boost public morale to maintain popular support for the war effort, helped raise money to finance the war and prevent government bankruptcy. -
Illustrative Posters
During World War I, posters of the Central Powers countries (led by Germany and Austria-Hungary) differed from those of the Allied Powers countries (led by France and Great Britain and joined by the United States in 1917). For example, posters from the United States tended to be more illustrative than those from Germany. -
A. M. Cassandre
His love of letterforms is evidenced by an exceptional ability to integrate words and images into a total composition. He achieved concise statements by combining telegraphic copy (text), powerful geometric forms, and symbolic imagery created by simplifying natural forms into almost pictographic silhouettes. -
The London Underground
Austin Cooper made an interesting foray into the use of pure geometric shape and color to solve a communications problem for the London Underground, in which he symbolized the temperature changes as one leaves the cold street in winter or the hot street in summer for the greater comfort of the underground railway. -
E. McKnight Kauffer: London Underground poster
E. McKnight Kauffer, London Underground poster, 1930. Lyrical muted colors capture the idyllic quality of the rural location. -
L’Atlantique
A. M. Cassandre's well-known works are the Dubonnet advertising campaign, the 1931 poster for the ocean liner L’Atlantique, and typefaces for the Deberny and Peignot type foundry, including Bifur, a quintessential art deco display typeface. -
Ludwig Hohlwein, last recruiting poster, "And You?'
Ludwig Hohlwein, recruiting poster, early 1940s. In one of Hohlwein’s last Nazi posters, a stern and somber soldier appears above a simple question, “And you?”