The Moving picture world (September 1923-October 1923)

338 MOVING PICTURE WORLD September 22, 1923 Makes Nice Use of Plan Book Material There is nothing exceptional in this display on What a Wife Learned, from th': Opera House, Easton, Pa., save that it makes a very intelligent use of plan book material. It looks to be merely a matter TONIGHT * K<" YouU N<*tt Fotvt a th. TONIGHT ehWTe OPERA HOUSE eTt,r'I WEEK! I -£„,.„■. o»w, Tk-ov WEEK! .1 First National Release INTELLIGENT HANDLING of putting a few lines of type around a cut, but there is more than that to it. The lines of type must be well chosen and then type must be set in to get a display. This has been done in the present example to a better effect than usual. It is merely the alternation of eight point roman and twelve point bold in the upper corner, with two lines of bold in the lower, but there is a real display value that is absent where type too similar is used, as is generally the case. It is merely a matter of using a little roman to throw up the other lines. Show this to your printer if he is one of the many who think that display is the blackest type to be jammed into a given space. He may get the idea. If he does, your own advertisements will be bettered. Overstuffed Ads. Kill Off Display W. H. Laurance. of the New Garick Theatre, Duluth, Minn., sends in two displays for Trilby, each a three tens and using the same frame ; which is something they have had for a long time. Mr. Laurance says that the display was hurt because the printer did not have the type families the layout called for. The thing to do is to find out what families the composing room really has and then mark to suit the cases instead of asxing for something which is not known to be on hand. These two displays are poor examples of typography, but they supply an interesting study in type placement and the use of rules. The frame, it will be seen, 's that part which stops about two-thirds of the way down. The rest is built up of rule work, and we think that the rule work was a waste of effort. The space would have been better if set in open style. It might not have given as large a letter for each item, for the paneling does permit the use of higher letters, but on the other hand, the value of the open display would have been so much stronger that a smaller letter could have been used with equally good effect. Possibly the results would have been even better. An example of what is meant may be found in the circles at the top. One contains four heads in the circle with a head and figure below. It looks like an overdressed store window. The right hand space uses only a single cut, and gets a very much better display, since there are no distractions. We think a head would have been better than the feet, or the feet without legs, but even the legs are better than the somewhat uncouth character sketches to the left with their inane captions. Less rule and frame work and more real type display will give much better results. We think that Mr. Laurance made his original error when he decided that he should use that frame again. Then he built up on this until the printer handed him back an awful mess. He lias done much better work. Spreading Having concluded a series of newspaper Baby Peggy contests, the Universalists are now making a drive on department stores, and the publicity department lists fifteen large concerns which have profitably run this feature for two weeks or more. These contests are staged as publicity for the Peggy doll, in conjunction with theatres using the Peggy features. You can use them both if you hold the store back until the newspaper has had its chance, or you can combine the two into a triangular event that will make local history. Circle Theatre Is Coming Out Strong Recently the Circle Theatre, Indianapolis, has been doing some exceptional advertising for its First National attractions, and this for Slander the Woman is one of the best of the recent work. There is very little sales value to the cut other than that it sells the idea of the locale, but the design is so exceptionally good that some of the merit is unconsciously transmitted to the title and the reader goes to the type more than half convinced that Slander the Woman is a story out of the ordinary, and the well prepared copy verifies this belief. In such a circumstance the cost of the drawing and the apparently excessive space it occupies is fully justified in the results A First National Release AN APPEALING DESIGN it probably gains. It is one instance where an attractor which is little more than such actually makes business, not through its selling appeal, but because it is such a tasteful design. It is along the same line> NOW PLAYING WRIGHT KIDS "LAVENDER AND bawTtwik OLDLACT Fin CUMT An O i ibaJ »a* Malo4)0M COMING WEDNESDAY— "hUr, *l Um MoriW A First Nt tional Release TWO EXAMPLES WHICH PROVE THE OPEN DISPLAY TO BE THE BETTER