page_title: Aubrey Hammond
section_title: Poster designs
hierarchical_section_title: Aubrey Hammond / Career / Poster designs
caption_attribution_description: English: Drawing by Aubrey Hammond to advertise the Grand Guignol Productions at The Duke of York's Theatre, 1921.
context_page_description: Aubrey Hammond, was an English theatre practitioner. He worked as a set and costume designer in theatre and film and was a humourist, a book illustrator and commercial poster and advertising designer.
context_section_description: Many of Hammond’s poster designs were related to the theatre. Hammond featured in exhibitions of advertising posters at the V&A in 1931 and 1935 and his posters for The Little Theatre were still being discussed for their impact on the viewer. Earlier, in 1927, an exhibition dedicated solely to advertising posters also featured Hammond and commentators remarked on how the “atrocities which used to adorn our hoardings are now giving place to works of art.” When the state of British posters were compared negatively to American productions by the advertising consultant Sir Charles Higham, Hammond defended the British designers saying that “France is the only country turning out better posters than Great Britain and she is not far ahead and we will soon catch up with her.” Many of Hammond’s posters were used on the London Underground and by the London Underground Company;  advertisements for resorts, holidays, cruises, theatre productions and consumable commodities by the artist were abundant throughout the transport system. In 1936 one writer remarked that who could forget “An Aubrey Hammond strip on a bus or in an underground train.” Hammond’s poster for The Old Women at The Little Theatre was rejected by London Underground  Company as unsuitable for display.
  The posters designed by Hammond for The Little Theatre Grand Guignol focused on both audience and stage to reflect the violence and the macabre in the productions.
  Hammond’s design for the Unionist (Conservative) Party’s campaign poster for the 1924 U.K. general election was most unusual for the period and was hailed as ‘novel, arresting and fresh’ and ‘unlike any ever used before in all history of election “literature”.’ The English Journal reported that it was ‘the most popular of the many that were used during the campaign.’ and that ‘no explanation was necessary for this picture to give up its message at once.’
  Hammond himself was critical of the style of cinema posters being used in the 1920s. He characterised them as being  crude and sensationalist. However In a letter to the press he was particularly scathing of imported American Film posters and deemed British film companies to offer a less banal and trivial approach to film advertising posters.
caption: Continuous Grand Guignol
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