Georgie, devotedly I love you! (NYPL Hades-448716-1154183)
The pattern
This still is filed under Lettered cover hook.
Define
The cover is the hook, and the hook is lettering: a title treated as an image.
Mechanism
Type as bait. The words are drawn so they stop the hand before the contents are known.
Verdict
A journal, book, or issue must sell itself on a rack or a feed
Why it works
The composition puts the reader in the audience: the orchestra is drawn from behind, at the bottom of the frame, so the viewer's eye occupies the seat and looks up at the performer. Arcing the title over the scene turns the type into the proscenium arch rather than a label laid on top of the picture. The initial G drawn as a treble clef does double duty as monogram and category marker, which is how the cover announces sheet music before anything is read. Naming the performer in the second line of display lettering, not the composer, transfers the star's reputation to a piece of paper anybody can take home, the same borrowed-fame mechanism a celebrity endorsement uses today.
Steal this when
Reach for this when the thing you sell is a recorded or reproduced version of a live experience, such as a course, a talk, a session or a track. Frame the scene from the audience's seat and put the performer's name, not the maker's, in the second-largest lettering.