Beggarstaff Style

ベガースタッフ・スタイル / 1894–1899 / Style / Advertising Posters

Nicholson and Pryde's cut-paper poster style: contours dropped, subjects summarized in flat shapes of few colors. Commercially unsuccessful in its day, its radical economy anticipated the 20th-century poster.

Beggarstaff Style — Beggarstaff Brothers, Don Quixote poster 1895 — Wikimedia Commons / Public domain — Beggarstaff Brothers, Don Quixote poster 1895 — Wikimedia Commons / Public domain

Beggarstaff Style — Harper's Magazine poster 1895 — Wikimedia Commons / Public domain — Harper's Magazine poster 1895 — Wikimedia Commons / Public domain

Beggarstaff Style — Beggarstaff Brothers, Hamlet poster — Wikimedia Commons / Public domain — Beggarstaff Brothers, Hamlet poster — Wikimedia Commons / Public domain

At a glance

Visual cues

Flat cut-paper shapes
Omitted contours
Large fields of few colors
Boldness that looked unfinished

Best used for

Posters and shop signage that must register instantly from a distance
Book jackets and marks needing one strong silhouette in very few colors

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Dictionary entry

Type: Cut the letters from paper too, treating them as shapes not type
Composition: Let the subject fill half the sheet and set margins by trimming
Material: Scissors on colored paper, shifting pieces until the shape count drops
Caution: Adding outlines back to explain the shape kills the tension the omission created and leaves an ordinary illustration that merely uses few colors.
Further study: William Nicholson / James Pryde / its influence on the Sachplakat

Related entries

Plakatstil / Sachplakat (プラカートシュティール／即物ポスター)Same Advertising Posters lineage.Compare Beggarstaff Style and Plakatstil / Sachplakat
Art Nouveau (アール・ヌーヴォー)Shared effects: Luxury.Compare Beggarstaff Style and Art Nouveau

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