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Oldsmobile Eight sales catalog, 1936 Auto catalogs have always been sensuous sales tools, managing to make even the smallest utilitarian cars look luxurious. These days it’s done with extreme photography and computer-enhanced imagery. In 1936 it was done through the most elegant of Art-Deco artwork. Just look at that illustration, and never mind the car … Continue reading Streamline Moderne, in home and car
In 1906, the aspiring young entrepreneur could turn to a catalog like this and consider a career showing pictures – pictures that moved! Continue reading Amusement for Profit: The Movies Begin
What could you buy for a buck in 1928? Certainly the product options were a lot different that you’d find in a dollar store today, judging by this page… Continue reading The Dollar Store – 1928 style
Why double-decked buses have thrived in England to this day but never met much success in America, is a mystery to the author. Double-deck buses are just so…cool and entertaining… Continue reading Where are the double-decker buses of yesteryear?
It might seem hard to get excited about plumbing fixtures, but just look at this awesome streamlined kitchen from 1950….There’s such a fabulous diner vibe to that round breakfast table that it’s almost hard to focus on the sink! Continue reading Everything and the Kitchen Sink
This famous bit of job advice from the 1967 movie The Graduate was meant to hint at how shallow — how plastic — our culture had become. But this Montgomery Ward catalog from five years later embraces plastics quite without irony… Continue reading “One Word — Plastics”
I've come to a realization that 1970s design happened because product designers who lived through the 1960s then tried to figure out how to bring it to ordinary families. More explanation on the other side of the link… Continue reading When Muppets Attack
Famous artists? Midcentury design marked such an explosion in style after the restraint of the Second World War.This 1954 Sears catalog offers a textbook in a single page of…fabrics. Continue reading Signed Originals by Famous American Artists
1908 was a time when ladies’ hair was piled high and finding the right “back comb” to add to it was an important choice… Continue reading Combs no one would part with
Ease, convenience, quality, reliability – these are features any gadget aspires to. Eastman Kodak placed those attributes on the first page of their Premo camera catalog of 1914. They were valuable attributes in 1914; they are valuable attributes in the 21st century. What’s changed us how we measure these attributes…. Continue reading “All you could wish for” in a 1914 camera
