Friday, September 28, 2012
Slowly I Turn, Inch By Inch
For the first time this year I was actually able to land a job when I returned from working in Alaska. This is a good thing of course but working full time has it's disadvantages, namely I don't have as much free time to devote to the blog and it's driving me crazy. Unfortunately, pursuant to this I think I'm going to have to drop down to 3-4 articles a week that I can write in my free time on one of my days off. Days off, what a misnomer that is, it's not really a day of rest, just a day of chores and errands you can't get done on the days you're working because you're scheduled for a mid shift, the bane of retail. I'm not complaining though, the job is good, if not hectic, and I'll be eligible for benefits after 90 days.
Thursday, September 20, 2012
Beauty Without Airbrushing
Sometimes I come across some really amazing artwork for vintage ads like the one above from 1910 for Kelloggs Cornflakes. The artist is B. Tichtman and unfortunately his information was not available online but he apparently was an artist in the style of Gibson and his famous Gibson Girls that were so popular in the early 1900's. Tichtman was prolific in his work producing not just ads but calendars and postcards as well.
What strikes me most about this artwork is the beauty without the use of airbrush makeup that is so prevalent today... or am I dating myself there? I think photoshop is used more often these days to make impossible beauty out of the models used. Such things upset me because it changes societal perceptions of beauty into something that has women spending untold amounts of money in the pursuit of flawless beauty.
Kelloggs seems to have used this ad style for only a short time and I have not seen it used by any other advertisers. As for Mr. Tichtman, it is unfortunate that he is relegated to obscurity since his art still fetches a decent price when it comes up for auction.
Friday, September 14, 2012
A Hannibal Lecter Smile
Creepy Armour salesman guy would positively love to sell you some of his sausages, just don't ask what they're made of... really. With that Hannibal Lecter smile would you buy processed meats off of this guy? Apparently this was a 1917 version of an award winning smile but nowadays it's a "You're going to the funny farm smile". From the look of the ad Armour used to be into salting, curing or canning anything they could get their hands on. Not surprising really, it's 1917 and refrigeration was just getting off of the ground. Everyone still used iceboxes and foods had to be preserved in a non-refrigeration manner. Of course this also involved the copious use of salt in preservation which meant the average person consumed roughly 5x the present day RDA of sodium. Oddly enough though, for sodium being the great bugaboo of heart attacks that the FDA says it is, I rather think people back then had them less often than is currently the case.
Tuesday, September 11, 2012
Lucky Strike Means Fine Tobacco
I love it when ads chime on about so called experts and how they are singing the praises of whatever product being offered like a barbershop quartet. Of course these were the days before we were so cleverly informed by our government of the alleged dangers of smoking. All of the experts today agree like lemmings that smoking damages the health, but once again who are these experts? For the sake of the ad they were the members of the tobacco buying consortium in the South so of course they're going to sing the praises of tobacco. Lucky Strike differentiated themselves from the other cigarettes of the time period because they were made of 100% toasted burley tobacco rather than flue cured virginia. What does this mean in laymans terms? Burley has nutter slightly cocoa taste and a heavier nicotine kick while virginia tobacco is lighter and grassier with a new mown hay smell. Before you ask, I know all this from being a pipe smoker and having smoked both types of tobacco in their purest forms.
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