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Source: Metro

Did you know that between 1941 and 1947 Kit Kat temporarily had a blue wrapper and was made of plain chocolate due to milk shortage caused by the war; that Coca-Cola gave Santa Claus an image make-over in 1936; or that the famous Guinness toucan originally began life as a weathervane?

You will once you visit London Transport Museum’s fascinating exhibition ‘Promotion in motion’, but you’ll have to be quick because the exhibition closes in less than a month.

Visitors to ‘Promotion in motion’ are able to explore the evolution of commercial advertising on the Tube over the last century, and it’s quite astounding how much things have changed.

A photograph taken at Gloucester Road station in 1900 shows how the station walls were a riot of posters and enamel signs of all shapes and sizes. In fact, it wasn’t until the 1920s and 30s that the advertising hoardings were reorganised and de-cluttered. What’s interesting is that the way advertising became displayed on the Tube had a big influence on the artwork itself. Large format posters with bold designs best suited these new advertising spaces and quickly set the standard.

The exhibition also looks at how new technology is replacing the time-honoured tradition of using paste and water to glue posters directly to the tiled walls. It’s estimated that ‘dry posting’ (using special slimline poster frames that don’t need paste) saves 186 tonnes of waste from going to landfill each year, because the discarded posters are now fit for recycling.

It’s an interesting time, as new electronic technology revolutionises advertising on the Underground with moving adverts on Digital Escalator Panels and cross-track projections, which naturally also feature in this exhibition.

On the way to the exit, on a wall beside a large writing pad, visitors are asked: ‘What do you think advertising will look like in the future?’ It’s a question that fires the imagination, as the impact, scale and scope of the new electronic advertising seem to have infinite possibilities.

• ‘Promotion in Motion’ is showing until 26 September at the CBS Outdoor Gallery on the mezzanine floor at London Transport Museum, Covent Garden Piazza, WC2. www.ltmuseum.co.uk