Rowntree's Elect Cocoa

Why it works

Three words and almost nothing else. Working as the Beggarstaffs, the painters James Pryde and William Nicholson sold Rowntree's Elect Cocoa with a portly figure in a black hat and coat, a teacup before him and two companions drawn only in outline behind, set beside the brand name on an empty ground. Their method, collaging cut paper and stencilling flat colour, let silhouette do the work, on the principle that a poster had to land even when glimpsed from a passing horse-bus. The V&A records that their agent steered this speculative design to Rowntree's, and notes how little copy it carries. It is studied because, while Paris posters overflowed with Art Nouveau colour, the partnership stripped the form to essential shapes and anticipated modernism by a decade. Les Maîtres de l'Affiche reproduced it as a plate, yet the duo struggled for clients: their work proved too avant-garde for most advertisers of the day.