It's ironic that most of us will spend all day trying to avoid modern-day advertisements, but will eagerly burn up an afternoon looking at vintage ads. Particularly the designers among us. Upon learning that TimesMachine—the New York Times' project to publish 129 years' worth of their microfilmed newspaper's pages online—had left all of the advertisements intact, Derrick Schultz of Atavist called it "an underutilized design history resource."
Most graphic design objects were never meant to last more than a month, a year. In the case of newspaper advertising, they probably weren't even thought about the following day. But when viewed through the TimesMachine it's possible to see one hundred years worth of ephemera define an entire city's interests, cultural shifts, and history.
Interestingly, the Times also launched a side project called Madison, where they're relying on members of the general public to help them tag—and even transcribe—the advertisements, not just the articles. By clicking on the link, you can see random pages (it's currently covering the 1920s and the 1960s) and answer multiple-choice questions to help them determine what the ad is about.
Is it worth putting in a few minutes to help organize content that will only be made available to paid subscribers? It depends. It's kind of fun to see, say, old architectural icons when they were considered new:
Or the absolutely horrific home fashions of eras past ("Scallop loop fringed vinyl window shade with the look of antique satin," anyone?):
Or the way we used to board planes before we all got too out-of-shape to carry non-wheeled suitcases up a flight of stairs:
Or the sheer mechanical inefficiencies of the '60s—and the brazenness of copywriters—that a 400 cubic-inch (6.6 liter!) V-8 could be considered an "economy car:"
It's a Friday, so if you want to pitch in a few tags—or just peruse the gallery without helping—the link is right here.
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