The Devil passes
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 face is split down the middle in two colours, which does the whole characterisation - the same figure is host and menace at once, and no line of copy has to explain the tone. Faceting the head into flat planes makes it legible at poster distance where any modelled drawing would collapse, a constraint of silkscreen turned into the style. The three diagonal zones let the sheet carry title, billing, image and address without a single rule or box, because each wedge is its own container. Ending on a phone number is the piece of direct-response plumbing that most theatre posters of the period leave out.
Steal this when
Use this when a single character or object is the property and its appeal is that it is two things at once - split it literally and let the image carry the contradiction. Worth copying too whenever you need four content zones on one sheet with no grid and no boxes.