Ludwig Hohlwein - Hof-Möbelfabrik Anton Pössenbacher
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 frame is drawn rather than ruled: the poppy stems do the work of a border while staying part of the picture, so a small sheet never looks boxed in. The face is centred and symmetrical, which makes the whole plate read as a mark or a crest rather than an announcement, and that is what a furniture house selling status wants. All the selling information is reduced to two lines of lettering in the empty lower half, so the eye goes face, name, trade, in that order, with nothing to read past it.
Steal this when
Steal this when a small space has to establish standing rather than push an offer, and the name is the whole product. The stem-as-frame trick is worth taking any time a hard border would make a small ad look like a coupon.
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