Category: Inventions

#48 Cool & Comfortable

Chaz DeSimone 1 Comment

AmperArt #48 Cool & Comfortable

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UPDATE SEPT. 2017:

Now this is cool!

Just today I got a new Amper­Art sub­scriber whose busi­ness is called Amper­sand Heat­ing & Cool­ing in Bridge­wa­ter, Vir­ginia. How Bart named his busi­ness name “Amper­sand” is quite inter­est­ing. Seems like a fun & friend­ly guy, too. If he was­n’t on the oth­er end of the con­ti­nent I’d hire him to keep my place cool & comfortable.

“Cool & Com­fort­able” was a pop­u­lar adver­tis­ing slo­gan before mid-​century, as far back as the 1920s, & then again after mid-​century,  right up through the Dis­co Era.

Ear­ly on, it was used to draw crowds to air-​conditioned movie palaces & busi­ness­es — “It’s cool inside!” — which were often cold­er than the local stor­age plant.

A few decades lat­er the fash­ion world (if you can call poly­ester jump suits fash­ion) claimed its rev­o­lu­tion­ary new man-​made fab­rics were Cool & Com­fort­able. & sexy.

Enjoy some old ads for “mod­ern air con­trol” and “mod fashion”…

This 1953 The Sat­ur­day Evening Post pho­to fea­tures both syn­thet­ic air & syn­thet­ic fab­rics. The cap­tion says “Baby, it’s cool inside! A singed sun bather is invit­ed to beat the heat inside an air-​cooled Las Vegas, Nev., hotel. Next: air-​conditioned streets.” Looks more like he’s say­ing “You want heat, you got heat. Don’t open that door & let the cold air out!”

1953-newsp-ad-air-cond500

You might enjoy these entire pages from that edi­tion which con­tain won­der­ful old ads & some inter­est­ing facts about the evo­lu­tion of a/​c on The Sat­ur­day Evening Post’s web­site.

Decades lat­er, this ad promis­es instant love & romance just by slip­ping on this one-​piece wonder:

polyesterMore great fash­ion of the era, post­ed by Steve Hauben of the Data + Design Project:: Cool & Com­fort­able (& Sexy) Polyester

Choose one: Does my lat­est back­ground image remind you of a sexy fash­ion tex­tile or a sexy air con­di­tion­er fil­ter? Either way, stay Cool & Com­fort­able this summer.

 

PRODUCTION NOTES:
Original dimensions: 20″ x 30″
Programs: Illustrator, Photoshop
Fonts: Teen (a font which is very similar to a loose, contemporary hand-​lettering style of the era), Amienne (ampersand)
Ampersand: Amienne (tilted)
Background: pattern from SquidFin​gers​.com (lots of free patterns); posted by 1st​web​de​sign​er​.com (22 free seamless pattern sources)
CREDITS:
Air conditioning photo: Gene Lester, The Saturday Evening Post, June 6, 1953.
Clothing ad: Visual News; posted by Steve Hauben

 

chazsezLOGO-85x64

It’s been Cool & Com­fort­able in South­ern Cal­i­for­nia the past cou­ple weeks (I like the heat, so any­thing below 100 degrees Fahren­heit is fine by me), but two weeks ago it was so hot I blew three cir­cuit break­ers till I found the out­let that could han­dle the air con­di­tion­er in my stu­dio. Even when I’m not around I want my cats to be Cool & Com­fort­able.

I hope you are enjoy­ing your sum­mer. Thanks for sub­scrib­ing to Amper­Art. Please invite your ampersand-​fan friends & col­leagues to sub­scribe – tell them it’s fab­u­lous & free.

 

#45 Strong & Absorbent

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What a mess! My web­site has been hacked, my com­put­er is slow­er than a snail, and Pho­to­shop keeps crash­ing. I wish I could just grab a paper tow­el and clean every­thing up.

 

This is why I can keep the hairball-heaving cat.

 

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Find printing tips & framing ideas here.

This mon­th’s issue in the Amper­Art Slo­gans & Jin­gles series fea­tures one of the great­est tools of the 20th Cen­tu­ry, the paper tow­el. Many oth­er prod­ucts claim to be “Strong & Absorbent” but this sin­gle sheet of fluffy white fiber tops the list for con­ve­nience and multi-​purpose use. Need a plate for that cold slice of piz­za? Grab a paper tow­el. How about an emer­gency fil­ter for the cof­fee mak­er? Or soft pack­ing mate­r­i­al? Paper towel.

Do you know the his­to­ry of how the paper tow­el came to be invent­ed, and how it is man­u­fac­tured on giant machin­ery? This is a tru­ly fas­ci­nat­ing story.

It all start­ed way back…

Uh oh, cat just spilled a glass of milk.

Damn! Out of paper towels.

Sor­ry, got­ta go…

PRODUCTION NOTES:
Program: Photoshop
Original dimensions: 10″ x 15″
Font: Impact
Image: Bounty Giant Roll 2‑Ply Select-​A-​Size sheet, scanned and manipulated

Thanks for sub­scrib­ing to Amper­Art. Please invite your ampersand-​fan friends & col­leagues to sub­scribe – tell them it’s fab­u­lous & free.

#10 Crazy & Different

Chaz DeSimone 10 Comments

AmperArt #10 Crazy & Different

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This is a high-​resolution pdf & may take a few minutes to download.
Find printing tips & framing ideas here.

Upon read­ing of Steve Jobs’ pass­ing, I felt almost the same way as I did on Decem­ber 15, 1966…

As I was fold­ing papers for my paper route, the head­line caught my eye:

WALT DISNEY DIES

I went numb and cried. Both Dis­ney and Jobs were vision­ar­ies, cre­ative genius­es, demand­ing per­fec­tion­ists, and they both died much too young.

My first lap­top was the very first Tita­ni­um G3 – it couldn’t even burn a cd, it was such an ear­ly mod­el. (I’ve since learned to wait for ver­sion 2 or 3.) I was so proud of that thing. It was the ulti­mate in styl­ish design. I didn’t even care if there was a com­put­er inside the case, it was just beau­ti­ful to look at. That’s what I appre­ci­ate most about Steve – he made every­thing with class, from the way it works to the way it looks and feels, even down to the mar­ket­ing and advertising.

Macskateer

M‑I-​C… See how insane­ly great this world is today.

K‑E-Y…Why? Because of vision­ary genius.

After Walt passed away the com­pa­ny stum­bled for awhile, but the “cast mem­bers” and fans of Dis­ney have so much soul that they got it back on its feet. We’ll always won­der what else Walt would have cre­at­ed had he lived longer, and sure­ly we won­der that about Steve. But just like Dis­ney, Apple has such a strong desire to be a class act and pro­duce class prod­ucts, sup­port­ed by its incred­i­bly loy­al fans, that Steve would prob­a­bly be proud of what his peo­ple con­tin­ue to invent and polish.

I designed this poster hon­or­ing Steve Jobs, as a spe­cial edi­tion in my Amper­Art poster series.

The words are straight from of one of Steve’s speeches.

No doubt Walt and Steve are think­ing up the next insane­ly great idea in vision­ary heaven.

Production notes:
Original size: 20 x 30 inches
Program: Photoshop (coulda used Illustrator — probably started out as an entirely different concept for which Photoshop would be required)
Font: Myriad (Apple’s marketing font family)
Ampersand: Myriad, sans one delicious byte