Vintage Poster Archives
Splendid Habana Rond c.1930 | Neukomm Cigar Poster
Splendid Habana Rond c.1930 | Neukomm Cigar Poster
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A yellow-and-black Splendid Habana cigar box, rendered in three-quarter perspective against an unbroken cobalt-blue ground, fills the upper composition. A diagonal black band carries 'Splendid' in white outlined script; 'HABANA' and 'ROND' are spaced in uppercase across the box faces. In the foreground a single Havana cigar lies at an angle, its wrapper leaf shaded in warm chestnut-brown. A partial matchbox with red-tipped matches anchors the lower right corner. Nothing else. No background, no setting, no figure, only the object, presented with the absolute confidence of the Swiss Sachplakat.
Fred Neukomm (1905–1988) designed this poster around 1930, printed by Kümmerly & Frey in Berne using stone lithography. Neukomm worked within the Swiss Sachplakat tradition, the object-poster discipline that asked designers to isolate the product and render it with enough precision and graphic weight that no further argument was necessary. The cobalt-blue ground, the diagonal black band, the warm chestnut of the cigar leaf: each choice is economical and deliberate. This was advertising for Splendid's Habana Rond cigar line, produced for French-speaking European markets at a moment when Swiss commercial printing led the continent.
The diagonal black band running across the box lid is the compositional engine of the design. It creates movement in an otherwise static object study, and it carries the brand name at the exact angle the eye follows when reading the package. Neukomm understood that the Sachplakat worked not through prettiness but through clarity of hierarchy.
Reproduced as an archival fine art print on 200gsm Enhanced Matte Fine Art Paper using pigment-based inks. A strong choice for a home bar, study, or any interior where the geometry of 1930s Swiss graphic design reads well.
