ADVERTISING ARTS
May 1932
Frederick C. Kendall [Editor]
Frederick C. Kendall [Editor]: ADVERTISING ARTS. New York: Advertising and Selling Publishing Co., May 1932. Original edition. Thick letterpressed wrappers. 56 pp. Elaborate graphic design and production throughout. Cover by Lester Gaba. Pencil name erased from top edge of front wrapper, otherwise a very good or better copy. Rare.
8.5 x 11.5 magazine with 56 pages of text and advertisements. "Devoted to the design of advertising, the creation of printing, and the styling of merchandise and packages." -- the Publishers.
Advertising Arts promulgated a progressive design approach (and style) unique to the United States during the early Thirties, called Streamline. Unlike the elegant austerity of the Bauhaus, where economy and simplicity were paramount, Streamline was a uniquely American futuristic mannerism based on sleek aerodynamic design born of science and technology. Planes, trains and cars were given the swooped-back appearance that both symbolized and physically accelerated speed. Consequently, type and image were designed to echo that sensibility, the result being that the airbrush became the medium of choice and all futuristic traits, be they practical or symbolic, were encouraged. The clarion call was to "Make it Modern" -- and "it " was anything that could be designed. – Steven Heller
- Hot and Cold by George Sakier. Modern Restroom Fixtures.
- The Banana Tree, Drawing by Boris Artzybasheff.
- Invitation To France.
- ADC Review by E. F. Molyneaux.
- Prize Winners at the Art Directors’ Show. Examples by Alexey Brodovitch, Carl Erickson, Howard Trafton, Paul Outerbridge, Jr., Buk Ulreich, Etc.
- Over Seventeen years Of Calendars From the Marchbank Press. Examples by Charles Falls, Rene Clarke, Sydney Bagshaw, W. A. Dwiggins, Rudolph Ruzicka, Harry Cimino, and Thomas Maitland Cleland.
- Reform the Currency by W. A. Dwiggins. W. A. Dwiggins [1880 – 1956] was a polymath of the graphic and typographic arts and crafts, puppeteer, playwright and sometime furniture maker, and was a cultural critic of considerable breadth. He had something to say about just about everything. In 1932 he groused about money. He wrote that U.S. paper currency . . . “stands as the prime symbol of value in the infinite transactions of a great commercial nation. It is worth its face in gold ... but, my God! what a face!” In response to the nation’s poorly designed gelt, WAD had no guilt in suggesting a complete overhaul. His manifesto Towards a Reform of the Paper Currency, originally published by the Limited Editions Club in an edition of 452 copies was a passionate and lively little rant with lots of good design ideas for the improvement of banknotes and stamps-and just about anything else.
- Three Posters by L. A. Mauzan.
- Re: “Memo To Manufacturers” by Morris Einson.
- A Group Of Foreign Photographs. “Recently Shown at the Julien Levy Gallery,” Includes Images by László Moholy-Nagy [x2], and E. Sougez [x2].
- Lettering the Package by Roy Sheldon. Full-page Image of Gustav Jensen packaging design.
- Three Posters by S. A. Mauer.
- The Designer and the Factory by Henry Dreyfuss. Photograph by Anton Breuhl.
- Dressing Up the Dime Novel by Herschel Deutsch.
- Gallery by Burford Lorimer. Floyd Davis, George Switzer, Arnold Genthe, and Dr. Mehemed Fehmy [M. F.] Agha: short illustrated biographies with facsimile signatures.
- The Empire State Book Shop.
- “Rose Et Noir” by Amos Stote. Illustrated review of the new Nicolas catalogue from Draeger-Freres.
Allow us to quote at length from WHEN ADVERTS WERE EARNEST by Steven Heller: “In the early 1920s American products were either nondescript or laden with ornament to camouflage a mass-market look. Although mass production was the foundation on which the modern American economy was built, many cultural critics felt that items coming off the assembly line lacked good taste. American industrialists, who could easily afford to aesthetically improve their products, were apathetic, if not resistant, to the idea of spending cash on looks. What they did not resist, however, were marketing strategies that would ensure greater profits. So following a brief economic downturn in the early 20s and subsequent boom, industry frantically tried to find a new means of stimulating even further sales. It was the profit motive, not any transcendent utopian ethic or aesthetic ideal, that paved the way for commercial Modernism in the United States, which was introduced to American advertising in 1925 by Earnest Elmo Calkins (1868-1964) an advertising pioneer, design reformer and founder of Calkins and Holden Advertising Co.
“After seeing an array of cubist and futurist graphics, packages and point-of-purchase displays that he discovered in the pavilions of the Paris Exposition Internationale des Arts Décoratifs et Industriels Modernes , Calkins wrote to his staff in New York: “It is extremely ‘new art’ and some of it too bizarre, but it achieves a certain exciting harmony, and in detail is entertaining to a degree. [Everything is] arranged with an eye to display, a vast piece of consummate window dressing.” What was so different from most American advertising art was the noticeable rejection of realism in favor of abstraction. Illustration was not representational but through symbols, metaphors and allegories exuded a “magical” atmosphere. Boxes and bottles were no longer mere utilitarian vessels for their contents, but rather represented the essence of what the product symbolized to the consumer. Calkins summarized it this way: “Modernism offered the opportunity of expressing the inexpressible, of suggesting not so much a motor car as speed, not so much a gown as style, not so much a compact as beauty.”
“Modernism was a bag of tricks the artist could use to set an ordinary product apart. And advertising artists were indeed quick to appreciate the possibilities of Modernism since realistic art had reached what Calkins termed a “dead level of excellence.” It was no longer possible to make an advertisement striking, conspicuous and attractive by still pictures and realistic groups. Spearheaded by Calkins and Holden, and later adopted by such progressive agencies as N.W. Ayer and Kenyon and Eckart, commonplace objects-toasters, refrigerators, coffee tins-were presented against new patterns and at skewed angles; contemporary industrial wares were shown in surrealistic and futuristic settings accented by contemporary typefaces with contempo names like Cubist Bold, Vulcan, Broadway, Novel Gothic and more. Layout inspired by the European New Typography also became more dynamic in its asymmetry. Modernism offered an aura of cosmopolitan culture and avant garde style and signaled the spread of an aesthetic coming-of-age of American adverting.
“Color, which was comparatively rare in magazine advertisements in the mid-1920s, was another aspect of department-store Modernism introduced as a raucously decorative component in windows, which until then had been prosaic displays of products. The new windows borrowed primaries from De Stijl and the Bauhaus and combined them with bright purples, greens and oranges. In addition, “Modernism to the general public came to mean silver and black,” explains Frederic Ehrlich in his book The New Typography and Modern Layout (Frederic A. Stokes, 1934), one of the most astutely written critiques (posing as an instructional manual) of Modern practice published in America at that time. Ehrlich was referring to the metallic silver papers and black silhouettes that were ubiquitously used in window displays as well as later in magazine advertisements, menus, etc. The new silver alloy, Aluminum, symbolized the Machine Age as vividly as pictures of factories, crucibles and gears.
“True Modernism is good taste! And here is the key distinction between the radical forms of European Modernism that are heroic and romantic today, and the commercial application introduced in the 1920s: The former was intended to violently disrupt the status quo and improve the visual environment, while the latter had no loftier purpose than to revolutionize the buying habits of the American public and so stimulate the economy.”