‘American Dreaming’: Detroit’s golden age of auto design

Museum of American Packaging

A lovely personal collection of vintage American packaging here

Another roadside attraction

Love this flickr set of signs...

supermarket

Right up my street on a number of levels is this recreation of a period supermarket at the Goodwood Revival. One of the things I find most surprising is just how familiar it all looks. A lot to do with the very strong brand identities present I suppose, these are products we have grown up with. It also reflects just how ahead of their time these pioneers of consumerism were... contemporary films seem to be in a variety of shades of brown and grey, a landscape curiously bare of billboards, screens and information density. Entering this modest (to our eyes) supermarket shoppers must have felt transported to a vivid fantasy realm of colour and promise.






more pics at tasteologie

Nice VW ad

Soft and gentle

Volkswagen have always been a byword for sophistication with their advertising, particularly in print. But those Madison Avenue copywriters had their hands full when they started on the VW account, as somebody wrily observed 'how do you sell a nazi car in a jewish town?'.

Interesting to note then just how far we've come, can you see this flying today?

click for bigetty

Givi shelter

Because my design background is in marketing and advertising I'm often thinking about creative promo ideas even when I'm doing other stuff (it's a curse I tells thee, but it's just the burden I carry). The work was at smaller agencies the clients didn't really have a lot of money to splash about so we were always looking for the smart low cost idea. Hell, anybody can get column inches and generate buzz with a multi-million adspend and slots in the middle of the X-Factor, but how much more satisfying to spend peanuts on a great (usually amusing, that'll definitely help) idea that gets everybody talking.

One of my favourite examples of this kind of thing (nothing to do with me btw) was Volvo's return to motorsport in the 1994 BTCC. For the first year they campaigned the estate and played up to certain Volvo stereotypes by running the final round of the season at Oulton Park with a lifesize stuffed toy dog in the car. I remember at the time everybody referring to it as a Labrador, and all the weblinks I found do too, but it looks more like a Rough Collie to me.

Anyway it was a very successful stunt that gathered loads of free coverage and really helped challenge certain perceptions of the Volvo brand.



It got me thinking when I was watching Randy De Puniet riding in the MotoGP on the weekend... If his teams major sponsor Givi or at least their agency haven't already thought of this they should be shot.

click for biggety

At the very least they should mock it up for a photoshoot, but I'm talking about going the whole hog and making it for real.

Sure it's gonna have a catastrophic effect on the drag coefficient, but can you imagine Randy turning up for Thursday Practice on this with racing leathers and lid on board - the coverage would be huge. Go on Givi and LCR Honda you know you want to...