ApexUSA: Rise and Decline of U.S. Culture Through Ad Images
The Almighty Helvetica
We see this everywhere at some point towards the latter half of the 1960s. Helvetica font runs rampant. It’s everywhere: in the LIFE copy, in the ads. It permeates other publications, as well, but rarely as much as in LIFE. Not only that, but lower case. It’s more of that faux humility. Helvetica is a... »
The Gentlemanly Library that Never Was
One feature I see again and again from the 1930s to the 1950s is the Gentlemanly Library. In so many cases, I imagine a permanent set at MGM or Warner’s where actors would sit down for their LIFE feature about Errol Flynn the Distinguished Scholar (or something). Or at least Errol the scholar when... »
From Happy Beer to Glum Tick Spray
So what happened here. How, in the span of 19 years, did we go from this to that? The first image is from a beer ad dated October 31, 1949. The second image is from a tick spray ad dated August 9, 1968. Most people might actually be more familiar with the 1949 image. It’s... »
Bratty Kids and the Authoritarian Voice
This 2008/9 commercial for Van de Kamp’s fish is another indicator of a cultural shift. Yes, the kid is a mouthy, disrespectful brat–kids are kids, and they have always been kids*. So that’s not the point. Point is that in this commercial we’re saying, “The kid is right!” No longer is there an authoritarian voice,... »
The Center Cannot Hold
At some point in the mid-1960s, we start to see non-centeredness. This ad for Chevrolet “OK” Used Cars from 1968 is a prime example. The green box has been added by me. What’s at the center? Usually, the most important information is at the center of the image. But here we’ve got a bored kid... »
Raping My Last Memory Cell
It began at age 17, the year 1981. An instrumental song from the 1960s began to play through my head, and would continue playing for the next 27 years. I would hear it at the Kmart on Blackstone Avenue in Fresno, California, at the old 1967-era Grille that had been so well-preserved that it... »
Harkening to a Valentino Past
What about antiquity in ads from the 1960s? There is a point in advertising when we shift from forward-thinking (or even present-thinking) to thinking backwards. This Oldsmobile ad from April 11, 1969 is hardly the most prominent example of this, but it’s a start. »
Muscularity and Humility: From 1935 to 1968
Popular Mechanics April 1935. It doesn’t get much better than this. I could write a dissertation about the Popular Mechanics style circa 1930s, but I will spare you. Suffice to say this is complete balls-out, muscular journalism. Contrast with this mis-directed, faux-humble ad from 1968 which practically says, “We’re nobody.” »
Faux Sixties Humility: Charlie Brown vs. Gen. Montgomery
Peanuts’ heyday was the 1960s, and in many ways Peanuts encapsulates so many of those points that The Sixties held so dear: Freudian psychology, juvenalia, faux humility. We have this Naive Art style (contrast this with the draftsman-like art of cartoonist Winsor McCay in Little Nemo in Slumberland). Everything in Peanuts is slightly askew,... »