a result I had to be economical with the size and number of photographs.
The posters changed every week and as a rule had to be produced in from
two to four days (=design and two-or three-colour printing I), so that the
film title (following the usual film practice) could be published from four to
two days before the first showing. Obviously in such circumstances it was
rarely possible to exploit the full possibilities of design. Nevertheless I
believe that the Phoebus posters are the first practical attempt to make
true film posters. Moholy-Nagy has also made very interesting designs for
film posters. Developments in photographic and printing techniques will
certainly influence poster design•
In spite of the many possibilities in photo-poster design, the drawn poster
will probably not completely disappear. After the oil-painters of the pre
war period have played themselves out and today. insofar as they still have
a name from earlier. go on repeating themselves with process blocks. like
Hohlwein, nevertheless the movement today is for exactness and geometry,
as opposed to the brush-painting of the earlier masters. We now have a
feeling for pure mass and proportion. The work of the Frenchman A. M.
Cassandre is typical of this new poster design. He has produced some out
standingly drawn posters, full of the spirit of our times and already worthy
to be called classical achievements.
I end this section with statements about the new poster by two French
painters. which I have taken from the monthly periodical Querschnitt. Both
are founder members of the Cubist movement. Fernand Leger is, insofar as
the expression "Cubism" still has validity, its foremost exponent.
- That from the point of v1ew of the present it is an anachronism to cut posters in lino. li ke
med1eval woodcuts. I need hardly point out