Shell-Mex’s distinctive advertising owed much to its advertising manager Jack Beddington (1893–1959), who commissioned from leading Modernists as well as from traditional and popular artists, and who first employed E. McKnight Kauffer in 1929.

The monochrome design Lubrication by Shell, intended for a printed advertisement, uses the robot figure, based on the traditional artists’ lay-figure, which became Shell’s trademark motif and appeared in a range of media during the 1930s, cleverly combined with a dynamically angled photographic image. The elements are essentially those of Constructivist and Bauhaus Typophoto and the Modernist fascination with the image of the machine, here brought into the sphere of commercial advertising.

The American-born designer Edward McKnight Kauffer lived in Britain for most of his career and, having studied in Paris and helped found the Vorticist group, had more links with Modernist fine art and design than many other designers of the inter-war period. As well as major work for London Underground, the BBC and Shell, he designed books for Faber & Faber and published The Art of the Poster in 1924.