Category: Apparel

This mon­th’s piece for the Adver­tis­ing Slo­gans series fea­tures a term that described the sheets & shirts & under­wear hang­ing on the clothes­line back in 1950 after the joy­ful wash­day expe­ri­ence of a hap­py house­wife (with match­ing daugh­ter) & her beloved box of Rin­so Giant Size Laun­dry Detergent.

Today you don’t see that term used for deter­gent much any­more, but rather for the “whiter & brighter” smile of celebri­ties, pro­fes­sion­als, stu­dents…& hap­py housewives.

But there’s one more mean­ing & it’s just for pix­el push­ers like me. Any­thing over 92 is con­sid­ered “whiter & brighter” in a sheet of paper to print a favorite Amper­Art edi­tion on.

#21 New & Improved, one of my favorite Amper­Art pieces.
First in the Adver­tis­ing Slo­gans series.

How does deter­gent, fab­ric & paper get “brighter than bright”? Flu­o­res­cent whiten­ing agents (FWAs) have been used in many indus­tries, notably the mak­ers of laun­dry deter­gent since the ear­ly 1960s. The blue crys­tals in laun­dry deter­gent are FWAs. The FWAs work by absorb­ing ultra­vi­o­let light, from the sun or flu­o­res­cent bulbs, & then re-​emitting it as a bluish light to make col­ored clothes appear brighter & white ones whiter.

Paper mills have been using FWAs since the 1970s, when paper com­pa­nies found that they could achieve much high­er bright­ness lev­els than with bleach alone.

In 1992, the world con­sump­tion of FWAs was esti­mat­ed at 60,000 tons, with the deter­gent indus­try con­sum­ing 50%, the paper indus­try 33% & the tex­tile indus­try 17%.*

On the oth­er hand, teeth whiten­ing is achieved pri­mar­i­ly with bleach­ing agents such as hydro­gen per­ox­ide & scrub­bing with bak­ing soda — not by spray­ing your teeth with flu­o­res­cent paint.

*Source: Per­ry J. Green­baum, a free­lance busi­ness & tech­nol­o­gy writer, can be reached at pjgreenbaum@​gmail.​com. Excerpt­ed from Pulp & Paper Magazine

Vin­tage ads: vin​tagead​sand​stuff​.com

Pro­duc­tion notes:
Orig­i­nal size: 20x30 inches
Pro­grams: Illus­tra­tor, Photoshop
Fonts: Franklin Goth­ic Extra Con­densed, Brush Script (amper­sand)

This edi­tion would have been released a week ago, except I stum­bled upon a trea­sure trove of old mag­a­zine ads that are view­able online but also avail­able for pur­chase. I could­n’t pull my eyes away from these incred­i­ble exam­ples of adver­tis­ing art the way it was done way before Pho­to­shop — rul­ing pens that leaked, T squares that weren’t square, rub­ber cement that did­n’t stick too well and always kept me in sus­pense whether a piece of type would fall off the board before it went to press.

These vin­tage ads are not repro­duc­tions; they’re actu­al print­ed ads that are clipped from those won­der­ful­ly over­sat­u­rat­ed col­or glossy mag­a­zines of the past century.

A sad note on the web­site is told best by the cura­tor’s own words: ” About four or five months ago I suf­fered a stroke which has caused me to for­get much of what I am sup­posed to do to list ads. I am not able to add scanned images or oth­er things to my site, I just don’t remem­ber how.” I offered to assist and I hope he takes me up on it; his site has giv­en me so much joy.

If you want to see these price­less old ads (some are price­less sim­ply because the orig­i­nal ads were already sold but the dig­i­tal images are still there) and maybe even own an orig­i­nal, vis­it his site, vin​tagead​sand​such​.com

If noth­ing else, please pray for the full recov­ery of this per­son so he can once again enjoy adding images to his website.