Exposition natle Suisse des beaux-arts, exposition cantonale vaudoise, Vevey, 28 juin - 30 septembre 1901
The pattern
This still is filed under Event symbol poster.
Define
A symbol or allegory that makes an event feel like a destination. Not a timetable. A magnet.
Mechanism
Attraction by emblem. Date and venue ride under a picture that already means come.
Verdict
We are filling a room, a night, or a run of dates
Why it works
The poster has to announce two events that have nothing to do with each other, and it solves that in the figure rather than in the copy: industry attributes - hammer, cogwheel, machine bed - are given to an idealised art-historical body, so machinery and beaux-arts read as one proposition without a word of explanation. Framing the image and stacking type above and below it turns the sheet into a title page, which lets large sans caps carry all the information at street distance while the picture carries only atmosphere. The dates sit top right in the smallest block on the sheet, present as a deadline but never competing with the place name, which is the actual draw.
Steal this when
One event has two audiences or two unrelated halves - fuse them into a single image and let a framed picture with type stacked above and below do the announcing, instead of writing a sentence that explains the pairing.