Sunday 28 May 2017

Big Macks


Mack Trucks were assiduous mid-century advertisers, not only in the business press like Fortune but also in general interest, consumer magazines like Life and Saturday Evening Post. It made sense to reach out to the captains of industry in an age when vehicle leasing was in its infancy. The case for consumer advertising is less direct but seems to have been about brand awareness and building strong community associations in the public consciousness. In the fashion of the times they employed hyper-realist illustration to glamorise the vehicles and portray the higher calling of community service. The company symbol of the bulldog with its four-square stance and barely controlled aggression made regular appearances. First responders race through the city streets in bright red Mack fire-trucks while in the nation’s small towns, volunteer crews rush to the neighbourhood fire station where another Mack is prepared for a rescue mission. Life without Mack trucks would be inconceivably insecure is the message. In its prime, the Mack was an all-American brand with the power and standing of, say, Harley-Davidson or Levi Strauss but since 1990 it has been owned and operated by AB Volvo. As of March 2017, Mack truck’s US market share was 10.4%.


Most of these examples carry the signature - Woodi - which tells us it’s the work of Woodi Ishmael (1914-95). Woodi was an illustrator who never graduated to the upper echelons of the profession but had the ability to make a decent living working to his strengths – which included a high degree of technical finish, a flair for well-observed figure compositions and an eye for idealised Americana, perhaps best seen in the image of scrubbed-up, shiny faced schoolchildren crossing the road under the avuncular eye of the neighbourhood cop. This post concludes with four ads for another of Woodi’s major clients, Mathieson Chemicals. According to this source, Woodi was the official courtroom artist when Jack Ruby went on trial for the murder of Lee Harvey Oswald in 1963.











Tuesday 23 May 2017

Even More Faultfinding


Another batch of Find the Fault has come my way. This transport related set reflects Britain in the mid-1950s but could have been offered for sale many years later in line with the Dennis Productions business model – why innovate when you can profitably recycle? The drawings are conservatively styled – no flamboyant gestures, neutral in tone, soberly conceived. Something of Ant and Bee (Angela Banner, illustrated by Bryan Ward) about them but lacking the eerie precision that gives the former such a haunting presence. Road transport features on most of this series and makes up this selection. The streets and roads are orderly and soporific. Stiff and robotic figures are posed at intervals, with eyes downcast and devoid of social interaction. Vehicles and signage appear anachronistic and there lurks a suspicion that dark events may be playing out just off-stage. The imagination is encouraged to fill the spaces that mediocre illustration leaves blank. The listed faults are often pedantic in the extreme but the idea of a double decker bus lacking a staircase is admittedly unsettling. Pedantry is infectious and unrecorded faults can soon be found – such as the presence of a smoke-emitting pipe smoker on the lower deck of a bus in No. 37.












Wednesday 17 May 2017

Ten years of this sort of thing


Today is 10 years since the first post on this blog. The longevity comes as a surprise – most such ventures soon wither away. The next 10 years, actuarially speaking, are more problematic. But as long as it’s not a tedious chore, we carry on. To mark the occasion today’s images are a selection of analogue scrapbook pages, the kind of activity that used to occupy me until this space offered a place for digital scrapbooking. Somewhere to share imagery that may not be of universal interest but for which there is a minority audience. Only fate will tell if it lasts another 10 years but for now, it trundles on.



















Thursday 11 May 2017

Wawona Tunnel Tree, Yosemite


This ancient Giant Sequoia tree was estimated (in the 1920s) to be 4846 years old, a suspiciously precise number. Whatever the true figure it lasted only another 40 years or so. It’s home address was Mariposa Grove, Yosemite National Park and in 1881 it suffered the indignity of having a tunnel hacked through its base by the Yosemite Stage and Turnpike Company to enhance its value as a tourist attraction. It certainly made for some eye-catching postcards as vehicles and celebrities passed through the aperture. The end came in February 1969 after heavy snowfall settled on the crown causing it to tilt. Felled in the interests of safety, it can still be seen lying in a horizontal position.




Monday 8 May 2017

Homeland Guinness

Malin Head, County Donegal
It’s no surprise that the name of Guinness is attached to so many bars and pubs in its country of origin. This selection includes several examples that are homages to the celebrated range of posters illustrated for Guinness in the UK by James Gilroy. There’s a strong tradition of hand-painted publicity in Ireland and while some are more or less transcriptions of Gilroy originals at least one example, photographed in the north of Donegal, close to Malin Head, has been specially conceived for its coastal location.

Skibbereen, County Cork
Gougane Barra, County Cork
Dungarvan, County Waterford
Enniscorthy, County Wexford
Buncrana, County Donegal