Dubo, Dubon, Dubonnet
Dubonnet1932
Dubo, Dubon, Dubonnet is a 1932 poster triptych (lithograph) for Dubonnet, created by Alliance Graphique, Paris.
Why it works
A poster that behaves like a strip of film. Asked by the aperitif house Dubonnet for a poster, A.M. Cassandre delivered three: a little man in a boater at a café table raises his glass, drinks and pours again, filling with the drink's colour panel by panel, while the name builds alongside him, from DUBO ("du beau", something beautiful) to DUBON ("du bon", something good) to DUBONNET. Britannica notes the Dubonnet posters were among the first designed to be read from fast-moving vehicles and introduced the serial poster, a sequence seen in quick succession to deliver one idea. Printed in sizes up to wall-high painted canvases, it lasted: one painted wall survived in Paris into the early 1980s, and a MoMA curator compared the little drinker's charm to Mickey Mouse's. It is studied as the founding example of timing, motion and wordplay in a static medium, and its three-beat refrain passed into everyday French. MoMA gave Cassandre a retrospective in 1936 with Dubonnet at its centre.
Techniques
- Storytelling Across three panels a little man drinks and pours again, filling with colour as the name builds, like a strip of film.
- Humour Wordplay grows the name from something beautiful to something good to the brand itself, delivered by a charming little drinker.
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