Prospectus de Librarie et de Journaux: les soliloques du Pauvre par Jehan Rictus
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 lettering is placed inside the picture, not beside it, so the title reads as if it were printed on the man's coat, and the poor man and the product name become one object. The direct gaze breaks the fourth wall on an otherwise anonymous crowd scene, which converts a genre street picture into an accusation aimed at the reader who can afford the book. Tonally the sheet is nearly all black; the few points of light are the gas lamps and the man's face, so the eye is forced along exactly the path the seller wants, from the street to the face to the title.
Steal this when
Steal this when the product is an experience or a point of view rather than a feature set, and describing it would cheapen it. Stage the single scene the work is about, put one character looking straight at the reader, and set the title inside the image so the name cannot be separated from the feeling.