Internationale Kunstausstellung Dresden 1901, Albert Klingner
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 design rests on a single substitution - swap the feather's ocellus for an actual eye - and everything else is restraint around it. Because the peacock eye is already a near-eye, the swap reads instantly and then keeps rewarding, which is what holds a passer-by for the second look. Deep blue behind metallic gold gives maximum separation with only a few stones, and putting the lettering in green, the third colour, keeps text and image from competing. The V-form capitals date and brand the sheet as new art rather than trade printing.
Steal this when
Use this when you have no product to show and only an idea to sell. Find the one object that is already almost your metaphor and change a single element of it, then keep every other decision plain so the substitution is the only event on the page.