Advertentie van sigarenmagazijn Het Leienhuis 1874 - 1935

Mathieu Lauweriks made this advertisement for a cigar shop—Het Leienhuis—which is Dutch for ‘The Slate House.’ I love the way he used a kind of medieval, slightly awkward typeface. I imagine Lauweriks as the art director, designing the whole thing, figuring out the balance of the ornamental borders, the typography, and the image of the guy smoking a cigar. It's sort of Art Nouveau, but clunky. I keep thinking about all those hands that touched it. It would have been the hands of the draughtsman, the woodcutter, the printer, and then all the people who picked it up and looked at it. It’s like it has a whole life, a little chain of life, you know? The artist starts it off, but then it just goes on and on. And, of course, we’re adding another moment to it right now!