Herve Morvan

So, i've been working at Tap East at the new Westfield Shopping Centre in Stratford for the past few weeks and am still doing so at the moment. It is a bar/pub that specialises in exotic, esoteric beers from within the British Isles and around the world. A strange establishment for a shopping centre, true, however an endeavour that i am more than pleased to be part of.

I had a day off from work last week and went to the magnificent 'Museum of Childhood,' in Bethnal Green. After exploring the exhibits extensively, i perused through the book collection they have there and came across a book on the subject of Herve Morvan, the French poster designer. Amongst his more notable creations are the mildly racist posters that advertised the French cocoa product, 'Banania.' However, upon looking through this book it appears that Morvan created posters advertising products now seen as considerable vices of the human mind and body, more specifically Gitanne cigarettes and a variety of beers. With my rejuvenated interest in beer, it was of course the posters advertising the latter that intrigued me most. These marvellous posters, whilst remaining stylistically estranged from the modern day beer advertisements do interestingly bear some form of resemblance to them in the sense that beer is a friendly thing, that beer is a drink for fun times filled with laughter (something that cannot be said for the pompous adverts for vodka and other such leading manufacturers of high vol spirits). Take for example, the brave knight striding along triumphantly with his mammoth glass of amber ale or the man, so enamoured with his glass of beer that he sees it as a thing to be romanced (a primitive Swiss Tony perhaps?). It is for these reasons and these posters that i transform myself mentally when at the bar, into the burly Northern French, Belgian or German bar tender pouring increasing amounts of alcohol into the glasses of willing customers.

As usual, i regret to inform you that i've not done my research into where i got these images from merely downloading them like a madman instead. Apologies for this.

Anyway, do come back for some more folks. Over N Out.