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Tag: Amperbr&

#150 Good & Plenty

October 19, 2021October 23, 2021 Chaz DeSimone 3 Comments
Black, pink & white colors in Good & Plenty candy shapes
#150 Good & Plenty
Click image to view full size or download poster for gallery-​quality printing & framing.
This is a high-​resolution pdf & may take a few minutes to download.
Find printing tips & framing ideas here.

This piece is from the Amperbr& series featuring brands with ampersands.

Can you hear this in black & white?

Once upon a time there was an engineer,
Choo-​Choo Charlie was his name we hear.
He had an engine & it sure was fun,
He used Good & Plenty candy, to make his train run.
Charlie says, “Love my Good & Plenty!“
Charlie says, “Really rings the bell!“
Charlie says, “Love my Good & Plenty!
Don’t know any other candy, that I love so well!”

Remem­ber that jin­gle? If so, you most like­ly watched the com­mer­cial on a black & white TV, maybe even with rab­bit ears.

The jin­gle was writ­ten by adver­tis­ing exec­u­tive Bernard Russ Alben & the pub­lic loved it. (I won­der why he did­n’t pen the last line as “Don’t know any oth­er can­dy, that tastes so swell!” as that slang was the cat’s pj’s back then.) 

This will bring back mem­o­ries to some of you, & show oth­ers what hand-​drawn ani­ma­tion in a con­tem­po­rary style was back in the mid­dle of last century:

October 24th is National Good & Plenty Day—
celebrating the oldest brand of candy in America

Good & Plen­ty is the old­est brand­ed can­dy in the Unit­ed States, first pro­duced by the Quak­er City Con­fec­tion Com­pa­ny in Philadel­phia in 1893. Choo Choo Char­lie appeared in adver­tise­ments start­ing in1950. Appar­ent­ly he used licorice in place of coal (they’re both black, after­all) to run his train. 

Good & Plen­ty has been made by Her­shey since 1996 & the fla­vor has­n’t changed one bit (although the pack­ag­ing & even one impor­tant detail in the name has — keep read­ing). Facts about Good & Plen­ty are fea­tured on their web­site at her​shey​land​.com

Good & Plen­ty is still very pop­u­lar, & is a sta­ple in movie the­aters along with Junior Mints, Sug­ar Babies, Jujyfruits & Milk Duds. It’s always been one of my favorite can­dies for two rea­sons: I like the fla­vor of the crisp out­er shell, a bit spicy, break­ing through to the chewy cen­ter of black licorice. But that’s just half of what I like about Good & Plenty. 

Oldest candy, newest colors

I love the styl­ish col­ors of Good & Plen­ty (the orig­i­nal pack­ag­ing, any­way). The com­bi­na­tion of pink, black & white has always been a favorite col­or scheme of mine. (I wear a pink tie with a black suit when I dress up, but usu­al­ly it’s just a pink tank top & black shorts. For those of you who know I’m a nud­ist, maybe just a black fedo­ra with a pink band.) The box­es used to be only pink, black & white. The can­dies are pink & white (as shown in the Amper­Art poster), with a black licorice cen­ter that’s vis­i­ble only after you’ve munched through the thin can­dy shell. 

Although invent­ed 60 – 70 years pri­or, Good & Plen­ty’s col­ors were spot-​on con­tem­po­rary dur­ing the 1950s and ear­ly 60s. Remem­ber when homes, fash­ion & adver­tise­ments were com­bi­na­tions of pink, black, white & gray back then? (Not TV ads, though — black & white only, no pink inside those tubes.) 

The poo­dle skirt has an interesing his­to­ry. Read it here.

Speak­ing of cat’s meow, here’s my senior’s arthri­tis sup­ple­ment for good mobil­i­ty & plen­ty of com­fort. I just sprin­kle it on top of her food & she gob­bles it up like can­dy — her ver­sion of Good & Plen­ty. Proof the col­or scheme is still pop­u­lar today.

Notice anything different?

Sev­er­al decades ago Good & Plen­ty added pur­ple to the pack­age & took out the black. It’s more col­or­ful and appeal­ing to most peo­ple I sup­pose, but I miss the pink/​black/​white pack­age. (Not to men­tion pur­ple & brown are my least favorite col­ors — per­haps why I hate peanut but­ter & jel­ly?) For­tu­nate­ly when Good & Plen­ty changed the pack­ag­ing they did not change the con­tents. The can­dy is still pink & white shells & black licorice center.

But that’s not all. Com­pare these old & new pack­ages. Can you spot the major dif­fer­ence? Hint: it’s a pro­gres­sive change in brand­ing that made Amper­Art #150 Good & Plen­ty possible.

I’m sure you amper­sand fans noticed that not only did the type­style change (which just hap­pened to be a very fit­ting & pop­u­lar mid-​century Bodoni to com­ple­ment the mid-​century col­or scheme), but the name changed as well, at least in its typog­ra­phy: the “and” was replaced with our favorite char­ac­ter. (& that’s what makes this Amper­Art edi­tion pos­si­ble.) I think the amper­sand in the name is bril­liant and pro­gres­sive, so in tune with today’s brand­ing & com­mu­ni­ca­tion. (How­ev­er, it can’t be typed out exact­ly in a URL like the old name could.*) The new let­ter­ing is also per­fect, as the round­ness com­ple­ments the shape of the can­dy itself. The new brand design­ers could have (& maybe tried) turn­ing those two Os into cross-​sections of the can­dy, mak­ing the inside (the “counter” in type lin­go) black for the licorice & coat­ing the out­side (the main O shapes) in pink & white. But I’m glad they set­tled on exact­ly what it is today. Very licorice, very friend­ly (in a cute way, even) & very contemporary.

How­ev­er, I still hate the pur­ple, so this is what I would do:

If I had my way, I’d styl­ize the new pack­age with retro col­ors. Then frame & hang it among mid-​century-​modern décor.


RIP BLACKWOLF, AMOS & ANDY, BRIQUETTE, JEEPERS CREEPERS, & ALL MY FRIENDS’ & NEIGHBORS’ BLACK CATS WHO WILL BE CELEBRATING NATIONAL BLACK CAT DAY IN HALLOWEEN HEAVEN

Iterations later…

Here’s some­thing inter­est­ing & per­plex­ing. There’s anoth­er can­dy sim­i­lar to Good & Plen­ty but with many col­ors & many fla­vors. So far, so good. But why did they devi­ate from the orig­i­nal “and” in “Good and Plen­ty,” instead using the con­trac­tion ” ‘n “? Even when the pack­ag­ing was updat­ed to match the new Good & Plen­ty look, the ” ‘n ” was retained. Only lat­er on did the con­junc­tion change, log­i­cal­ly, to an ampersand. 

From a logo design­er’s per­spec­tive, it’s a pleas­ant sur­prise when things just fit. Some­times it’s pure coin­ci­dence, as in the words Plen­ty & Fruity: they’re both the same num­ber of let­ters, and more serendip­i­tous­ly, they both end in “y” which not only allows the last let­ter to fit nice­ly, but con­tin­ues the unique brand iden­ti­ty of the styl­ized “y.” Also as a design­er I’ll say that they should have left the let­ters sol­id, not high­light­ed in the lat­est ver­sion. The can­dies yes, the logo no. But that’s a moot point any­way, as you’ll read in the last line below.

About Good & Fruity (or Good ‘n Fruity or Good and Fruity) from Wikipedia:

Good & Fruity is a mul­ti­col­ored, multi-​flavor can­dy with a sim­i­lar shape to Good & Plen­ty.[1] Unlike Good & Plen­ty, Good & Fruity con­tains red licorice. The can­dy was pro­duced by The Her­shey Com­pa­ny.

Before 1992, all Good & Fruity can­dies con­tained the same-​flavored red gum­my cen­ter, rely­ing upon the hard can­dy shell to pro­vide the dif­fer­ent fla­vor accord­ing to col­or. Around 1992, the for­mu­la was changed, and the can­dies’ inte­ri­ors became color- and flavor-​coördinated with the out­er shell to give the can­dy a “fruiti­er” taste.

Good & Fruity was out of pro­duc­tion for an extend­ed peri­od, but returned to the Her­shey Foods line­up in March 2008. The third recipe was mod­i­fied from the orig­i­nal and 1992 ver­sions: the more recent recipe was clos­er to a jel­ly bean and does not con­tain red licorice. The name was slight­ly changed, orig­i­nal­ly “Good ‘n Fruity,” with the new name con­tain­ing an amper­sand instead of “n.” The can­dy also con­tained the fol­low­ing fla­vors: cher­ry, orange, lemon, lime, and blue rasp­ber­ry.

—Wikipedia

I’d like to try these “new & improved” fruity fla­vors, but unfor­tu­nate­ly they’ll be hard & stale by now. In mid-​2018, the can­dy went out of pro­duc­tion again. But at least they final­ly got the amper­sand in the logo where it right­ful­ly belongs.


RIP BLACKWOLF, AMOS & ANDY, BRIQUETTE, JEEPERS CREEPERS, & ALL MY FRIENDS’ & NEIGHBORS’ BLACK CATS WHO WILL BE CELEBRATING NATIONAL BLACK CAT DAY IN HALLOWEEN HEAVEN

Just the black part

This sec­tion is all about black licorice. Because I love black licorice. That’s such a per­fect fla­vor to pair with the out­er can­dy shell in Good & Plen­ty, & you taste the black licorice only after break­ing through the spicy fla­vor of the pink & white shells. 

Have you ever tast­ed real licorice? Salt­ed licorice? Dou­ble salt­ed licorice? Read a few para­graphs down. 

There’s anoth­er can­dy that is sim­i­lar to Good & Plen­ty — the long col­or­ful pieces in licorice bridge mix. That & scotch kiss­es (marsh­mal­low & caramel) were my favorites at the Sears can­dy & nut counter. Ah, the good old days with the aro­ma of fresh pop­corn in that sec­tion of the ubiq­ui­tous depart­ment store.

That licorice bridge mix (as opposed to your stan­dard choco­late bridge mix) was a sea of licorice pastilles — long pas­tel can­dies sim­i­lar to Good & Plen­ty, licorice dots, and col­or­ful­ly sprin­kled licorice pieces, all in a bin where the counter per­son scooped out how­ev­er much you want­ed. Fun & delicious!

Love licorice?

For the die-​hard licorice con­noiseur, there’s a store that sells every type of licorice from every coun­try — the British spell it “liquorice” — with a name that says it all: Licorice Inter­na­tion­al with a retail shop in Lin­coln, Nebras­ka. That would entice me to take a road trip, stop­ping at old-​fashioned din­ers along the way. Licorice Inter­na­tion­al has a won­der­ful online store, too, with lots of facts about licorice. You can select licorice by coun­try, by type, & by brand. There’s a good selec­tion of sam­plers, too. Good ol’ Good & Plen­ty is includ­ed in the Amer­i­can Favorites Sampler.

If you love licorice — & you’re adven­tur­ous — & you like salt — try some salt­ed or even dou­ble salt­ed (Dubbel Zout) licorice. It’s main­ly from Hol­land. Licorice Inter­na­tion­al has a Salty Sam­pler. You can also find salt­ed licorice in local can­dy stores and gourmet mar­kets, but I real­ly like this web­site with all its cat­e­gories and infor­ma­tion. There are 57 vari­eties of licorice from Hol­land alone! 

Next time you’re dri­ving across coun­try on Inter­state 80 be sure to stop in the Licorice Inter­na­tion­al shop. You can also see every type of licorice they car­ry on their web­site. But if you can hold off on your licorice crav­ing & could use an inter­est­ing & heart­warm­ing sto­ry right now, vis­it this page about how Licorice Inter­na­tion­al start­ed and flourished…especially the part about the sweet lit­tle lady.


RIP BLACKWOLF, AMOS & ANDY, BRIQUETTE, JEEPERS CREEPERS, & ALL MY FRIENDS’ & NEIGHBORS’ BLACK CATS WHO WILL BE CELEBRATING NATIONAL BLACK CAT DAY IN HALLOWEEN HEAVEN

More good facts & plenty of them

I found a blog that is chock full of infor­ma­tion about can­dy, can­dy & more can­dy! There’s a page about Good & Plen­ty that would make this arti­cle three times as long, so just go to that page and enjoy read­ing how Good & Plen­ty used to taste dif­fer­ent (what does­n’t? — although I still think it tastes pret­ty good); how you can get Good & Plen­ty straight from the fac­to­ry where it’s fresh­er & soft­er; also how tri­als went with oth­er fla­vors such as Good & Minty (it did­n’t stay on the mar­ket long). For plen­ty of good read­ing about can­dy in gen­er­al, their home page is can​dy​blog​.net.


RIP BLACKWOLF, AMOS & ANDY, BRIQUETTE, JEEPERS CREEPERS, & ALL MY FRIENDS’ & NEIGHBORS’ BLACK CATS WHO WILL BE CELEBRATING NATIONAL BLACK CAT DAY IN HALLOWEEN HEAVEN

I’m hoping to get some good, & plenty of, comments about licorice, mid-​century-​modern, or Choo Choo Charlie.

Com­ment here.
Or here.

RIP BLACKWOLF, AMOS & ANDY, BRIQUETTE, JEEPERS CREEPERS, & ALL MY FRIENDS’ & NEIGHBORS’ BLACK CATS WHO WILL BE CELEBRATING NATIONAL BLACK CAT DAY IN HALLOWEEN HEAVEN

Happy Good & Plenty Day

Vis­it this blog post for lots of info about Nation­al Good & Plen­ty Day.


RIP BLACKWOLF, AMOS & ANDY, BRIQUETTE, JEEPERS CREEPERS, & ALL MY FRIENDS’ & NEIGHBORS’ BLACK CATS WHO WILL BE CELEBRATING NATIONAL BLACK CAT DAY IN HALLOWEEN HEAVEN

Can’t tell you why Nation­al Good & Plen­ty Day is Octo­ber 24, but this ad from the 1950s or 60s is haunt­ing­ly appro­pri­ate.

Have a good Halloween & score plenty of treats.


RIP BLACKWOLF, AMOS & ANDY, BRIQUETTE, JEEPERS CREEPERS, & ALL MY FRIENDS’ & NEIGHBORS’ BLACK CATS WHO WILL BE CELEBRATING NATIONAL BLACK CAT DAY IN HALLOWEEN HEAVEN

ABOUT THIS SPECIAL AMPERART SERIES FEATURING BRANDS WITH AMPERSANDS

Amperbr&

Amper­br& (pro­nounced “amper­brand” — but you got that, did­n’t you?) is a spe­cial series with­in the Amper­Art col­lec­tion, fea­tur­ing com­pa­ny & prod­uct names which con­tain the word “and”; or a con­trac­tion such as “ ‘n ”; or the amper­sand itself. In each case, the con­junc­tion is replaced by an amper­sand which is set or styl­ized in the pri­ma­ry type­face of the brand’s logo. The Amperbr& series includes:
#89 Guns & Ros­es
#90 Arm & Ham­mer
#124 Shake & Bake
#127 Slip & Slide

#150 Good & Plen­ty
Search Amper­br& for others.

Arm & Hammer
Arm & Hammer logo

The focal point of each Amper­br& poster is the amper­sand, & obvi­ous­ly only brands are fea­tured that con­tain “&” or “and” or the con­trac­tion “n” (there are sur­pris­ing­ly many). Promi­nent col­ors & shapes of each brand’s logo & trade dress are fea­tured in each piece. In #90 Arm & Ham­mer, for exam­ple, the amper­sand is an exact repro­duc­tion of the amper­sand in the logo­type, at the same angle. The burst is radi­at­ing at var­i­ous strengths as well, same as the pack­age. (That was an inter­est­ing dis­cov­ery.) Final­ly, the bor­der dis­plays the red, blue & flesh (the arm) as on the logo &pack­ag­ing. The col­ors are sam­pled & matched to the brand’s palette.

Orig­i­nal­ly, the con­cept was to con­tain the brand ele­ments with­in a square, with the name of the brand set in a non­de­script font top & bot­tom, as such:

Arm & Hammer

But you, my dear amper­sand fan, are intel­li­gent & sophis­ti­cat­ed. No need to insult you by spelling out what brand each image rep­re­sents. (How­ev­er, if you are unfa­mil­iar with the brand, it’s in the title of the poster.) I decid­ed to forego the brand’s name & uti­lize the entire can­vas for the star of the show, the ampersand.

Logos have been my pas­sion since I was a kid, so this series is very spe­cial to me. My first logo was a star with a cir­cle drawn around it. It was for an imag­i­nary com­pa­ny called Cir­cle Star. I have no idea how I came up with that name nor what the “com­pa­ny” did. But that was my first logo, prob­a­bly before I even heard the term. (“Cor­po­rate iden­ti­ty” entered my vocab­u­lary not too much lat­er. Today it’s called “brand iden­ti­ty” which actu­al­ly goes beyond just the logo. That hap­pens to be my forte.)

I am very excit­ed about the Amper­br& series. Expect a new piece every so often with­in the Amper­Art series of “Ordi­nary Phras­es & Amper­sands Extraordinaire.”


Production notes for #150 Good & Plenty:
Original size: 20x30 inches
Program: Adobe Illustrator
Fonts: none; the Amperbr& theme contains only the brand’s ampersand
Ampersand: hand-​drawn, traced from logo
References & images:
Lyrics & lyricist info: popicon.life/a‑look-back-at-choo-choo-charlies-catchy-jingles/
Halloween ad & reference text: www​.old​time​can​dy​.com/​w​a​l​k​-​t​h​e​-​c​a​n​d​y​-​a​i​s​l​e​/​g​o​o​d​-​p​l​e​n​ty/
Reference text: www​.can​dy​blog​.net
Good & Fruity text: Wikipedia
National Good & Plenty Day: facebook.com/HTMGO/posts/national-good-and-plenty-daynational-good-and-plenty-day-is-an-unofficial-food‑h/2622104744516832/
Choo Choo Charlie commercial: YouTube
Licorice: licori​cein​ter​na​tion​al​.com
Poodle skirt article: lit​tlethings​.com/​l​i​f​e​s​t​y​l​e​/​t​h​e​-​p​o​o​d​l​e​-​s​k​irt
Packaging & other images:
her​shey​land​.com
can​dy​wrap​per​mu​se​um​.com/​g​o​o​d​n​f​r​u​i​t​y​.​h​tml
fran​coamer​i​can​gravy​.blogspot​.com/​2​0​1​1​/​1​1​/​l​i​f​e​s​-​l​i​t​t​l​e​-​p​l​e​a​s​u​r​e​s​.​h​tml
pin​ter​est​.com/​r​e​t​r​o​g​i​r​l​69/
can​dy​blog​.net/​b​l​o​g​/​i​t​e​m​/​j​u​j​y​f​r​u​i​t​s​_​j​u​j​u​bes
Fashion & architecture images:
Chair: www.coasterfurniture.com/mid-century-modern-living-room-décor-on-a-budget
House: decoratorist.com/contemporary-house-midcentury-modern-décor/painting-mid-century-modern-home-exterior-paint-colors‑9/
Poodle skirt: www​.whole​sale​hal​loween​cos​tumes​.com/​p​r​o​d​u​c​t​s​/​b​l​a​c​k​-​5​0​s​-​a​d​u​l​t​-​p​o​o​d​l​e​-​s​k​irt
Sears candy counter: www​.spring​field​news​sun​.com/​n​e​w​s​/​l​o​c​a​l​/​l​o​o​k​i​n​g​-​b​a​c​k​-​s​p​r​i​n​g​f​i​e​l​d​-​s​e​a​r​s​-​c​a​n​d​y​-​c​o​u​n​t​e​r​-​s​t​o​c​k​e​d​-​f​o​r​-​c​h​r​i​s​t​m​a​s​/​D​6​I​R​b​8​Z​N​x​7​P​q​B​S​D​n​t​Z​q​K​mN/ & www​.pin​ter​est​.com/​p​i​n​/​3​2​5​5​2​5​8​7​9​3​1​1​3​5​8​5​59/
Bridge mix: sug​ar​wish​.com
Retro TV: time​toast​.com
Note: “&” replaces “and” in most or all text, including quotations, headlines & titles.
You may repost the image & article. Please credit Amper​Art​.com.
To download a full-​size high-​resolution 11x17-​inch poster suitable for printing & framing, click on the image.

RIP BLACKWOLF, AMOS & ANDY, BRIQUETTE, JEEPERS CREEPERS, & ALL MY FRIENDS’ & NEIGHBORS’ BLACK CATS WHO WILL BE CELEBRATING NATIONAL BLACK CAT DAY IN HALLOWEEN HEAVEN

Visit DesimoneDesign.com

Chaz DeS­i­mone is the cre­ator of Amper­Art and own­er of Des­i­mone Design. He was adding ser­ifs to let­ters when he was just a lit­tle brat scrib­bling on walls. Now he’s a big brat and his entire career is design, so long as each project requires the most sophis­ti­cat­ed, log­i­cal, cap­ti­vat­ing results. Con­tact him at chaz@​desimonedesign.​com to dis­cuss your project, pick his brain, or just talk shop.

Chaz sez...

*Who banned the ampersand?

Whoever thought up the syntax for Universal Resource Locators (URLs) was 100% coder & 0% copywriter. No foresight whatsoever! We can’t even use common punctuation in a URL except for the hyphen & underscore. It sure makes my AmperArt URLs ugly and hard to understand. 
This is just one of the rants on my blog, chaz sez.
Rants & raves mostly about design, sometimes about the universe.
An occasional bit of useful advice.
Read the blog:
des​i​monedesign​.com/​c​h​a​z​-​sez
Desimone Design
Desimone Design

#124 Shake & Bake

May 25, 2018May 30, 2018 Chaz DeSimone 1 Comment
124 Shake & Bake
#124 Shake & Bake
Click image to view full size or download poster for gallery-​quality printing & framing.
This is a high-​resolution pdf & may take a few minutes to download.
Find printing tips & framing ideas here.

Amperbr& series

Pre-​microwave meal timesaver

Amper­Art #124, Shake & Bake, is the lat­est in the series of Amperbr& posters. This col­lec­tion is dear to my logo-​lovin’ heart, as I enjoy noth­ing more than design­ing cor­po­rate iden­ti­ty, specif­i­cal­ly the logo­mark & logo­type. (Well, almost noth­ing — see a cou­ple para­graphs down.) The con­cept for each Amperbr& design is to fea­ture the brand name’s and, ‘n, or & set as an amper­sand in the pri­ma­ry style used for the logo’s text. The actu­al pack­age for this piece looks like this:

 

Current Shake ‘n Bake package

Usu­al­ly I use the retro ver­sion of the pack­age or logo, but the orig­i­nal Shake ‘n Bake box (below) was real­ly bor­ing, so I opt­ed for the cur­rent ver­sion (above) which is still not the most sophis­ti­cat­ed design, but does dis­play a bit more flair.

Original package. Click image for more vintage food & candy packaging.

I don’t recall my mom ever using Shake ‘n Bake (it’s spelled just like that, but you know I always sub­sti­tute our friend the amper­sand), but she prob­a­bly did. Any time­savers would help, rais­ing four kids on her own after our dad passed away when we were only 4, 5, 6 & 10 years of age. TV din­ners, pack­aged mac & cheese, & canned spaghet­ti were in the mix as well, in between Mom’s excel­lent cook­ing of healthy, full-​course meals. This is before the ulti­mate kitchen time­saver, the microwave.

Here’s an old Shake & Bake commercial:

Shake & Bake all weekend long

Memo­r­i­al Day week­end is com­ing up, but what does that have to do with a box of bread crumbs? It’s the unof­fi­cial begin­ning of sum­mer, my favorite hol­i­day week­end of the year, & I’m going to shake & bake for three days straight. I’m head­ing off to Glen Eden Sun Club, a nud­ists’ par­adise, right after I’m through with this post, where I’ll bake myself under the ulti­mate organ­ic tan­ning lamp dur­ing the day & shake my booty on the dance floor at night. It’s the one hol­i­day I look for­ward to more than any other.

Hap­py Memo­r­i­al Day to you. Although it’s a week­end full of sun & fun, it’s also a rev­er­ent time to remem­ber & hon­or those who have fought & fall­en to pro­tect our great country.


Production notes for #124 Shake & Bake:
Original size: 20x30 inches

Program: Adobe Illustrator
Ampersand: Memphis
Hen image: Traced from original package
Credits:
Photos: Kraft & Pinterest
You may repost the image & article. Please credit Amper​Art​.com.
To download a full-​size high-​resolution 11x17-​inch poster, click on the image.

For pro­fes­sion­al graph­ic design, please vis­it Des­i­mone Design.

Desimone? Damn good!

#90 Arm & Hammer

December 30, 2016May 31, 2018 Chaz DeSimone Leave a comment

Arm & Hammer

 #90 Arm & Hammer
Click image to view full size or download poster for gallery-​quality printing & framing.
This is a high-​resolution pdf & may take a few minutes to download.
Find printing tips & framing ideas here.

Amperbr& series

Happy Bicarbonate of Soda Day

Early Arm & Hammer boxIn oth­er words, Hap­py Bak­ing Soda Day, which is Decem­ber 3o every year. We all know Arm & Ham­mer is the Kleenex, Stein­way & Cray­ola of bak­ing soda. Arm & Ham­mer is also the sec­ond in the Amperbr&™ series of Amper­Art posters, which fea­ture just the amper­sands of famous brand names. More about Amperbr& at the end of this article.

Decem­ber 30 is also Nation­al Bacon Day, but you can’t do near­ly as many things with bacon as you can with bak­ing soda. I know some peo­ple who would mask stale air with the aro­ma of siz­zling bacon, & die-​hard bacon fans prob­a­bly brush their teeth with crisp bacon bits, but I would­n’t want to throw bacon in my laun­dry to make it whiter & brighter nor use bacon to exfo­li­ate my skin. So we’ll stick to cel­e­brat­ing Arm & Ham­mer today.

Here are some of the many uses for Arm & Ham­mer bak­ing soda:

  • Add bak­ing soda to your bath water to relieve sun­burned or itchy skin.
  • Make a paste of bak­ing soda and water, and apply to a burn or an insect bite for relief.
  • Clean your refrig­er­a­tor with a solu­tion of one tea­spoon bak­ing soda to one quart of warm water.
  • Pour a cup of bak­ing soda into the open­ing of your clogged drain and then add a cup of hot vine­gar. After a few min­utes, flush the drain with a quart of boil­ing water.
  • To remove per­spi­ra­tion stains, make a thick paste of bak­ing soda and water. Rub paste into the stain, let it sit for an hour and then laun­der as usual.
  • If you crave sweets, rinse your mouth with one-​teaspoon bak­ing soda dis­solved in a glass of warm water. Don’t swal­low the mix­ture; spit it out. Your crav­ing should dis­ap­pear instantly.
  • Add a pinch of bak­ing soda to boiled syrup to pre­vent it from crystallizing.
  • To remove pes­ti­cides, dirt, and wax from fresh fruits and veg­eta­bles, wash them in a large bowl of cool water to which you’ve added two to three table­spoons of bak­ing soda.
  • Soak tooth­brush­es in bak­ing soda and warm water overnight to clean bristles.
  • Gaso­line and oil odors can be removed by putting clothes in a trash bag with bak­ing soda for a few days before wash­ing them.
  • Lay down a bar­ri­er of bak­ing soda under sink pipe open­ings and along base­ment win­dows to keep car­pen­ter ants, sil­ver­fish, and roach­es from invad­ing. Roach­es eat the bak­ing soda, dehy­drate, and die.
  • A light bak­ing soda paste on a damp cloth will remove bugs and tar from cars with­out dam­ag­ing the paint. Let the paste sit for a few min­utes before wip­ing and rins­ing clean.
  • To remove stains from your cof­fee and tea cups, wipe them with a damp sponge dipped in bak­ing soda paste.
  • Keep your rub­ber gloves dry and smelling good by sprin­kling bak­ing soda inside them. They’ll slip on more eas­i­ly too!
  • Sprin­kling bak­ing soda on your front steps will pro­vide trac­tion and melt the ice. Unlike rock salt, kit­ty lit­ter, or sand, it won’t dam­age out­door or indoor sur­faces or shoes.
  • Boil two inch­es of water in a pan with a burned bot­tom, turn off the heat, then add half a cup of bak­ing soda. Let it sit overnight. In the morn­ing it will be easy to clean.
  • Sprin­kle a tea­spoon of bak­ing soda on the bot­tom of your toast­er oven to elim­i­nate the burned smell from drip­pings and crumbs.
  • A paste of bak­ing soda removes red sauce stains from plastic.
This list is from http://​www​.almanac​.com/​c​o​n​t​e​n​t​/​h​o​u​s​e​h​o​l​d​-​u​s​e​s​-​b​a​k​i​n​g​-​s​oda# but I discovered it first at one of my favorite sites, National Day Calendar. (That’s where I discovered December 30 is also National Bacon Day, Falling Needles Family Fest Day to celebrate live Christmas trees, & No Interruptions Day (which is why I’m getting this article finished on time.) Check out nation​al​day​cal​en​dar​.com—it’s where you’ll also see National Ampersand Day is September 8.

You’ll find many more uses for Arm & Ham­mer Bak­ing Soda at the offi­cial Arm & Ham­mer web­site. Accord­ing to the Church & Dwight Com­pa­ny, mak­ers of Arm & Ham­mer Bak­ing Soda…

For over 160 years, ARM & HAMMER™ Bak­ing Soda has been a nat­ur­al and afford­able way to clean and fresh­en all around your home. Bak­ing Soda is pure, safe, and effec­tive, which makes it a great alter­na­tive to using harsh chemicals.

Bak­ing Soda is nat­ur­al, so it’s no sur­prise ARM & HAMMER™ has a long his­to­ry of envi­ron­men­tal aware­ness. We start­ed using recy­cled paper­board in 1907, and we were the sole cor­po­rate spon­sor of the first Earth Day in 1970. Today our com­mit­ment to the Earth remains stronger than ever.

Fam­i­lies use Bak­ing Soda in hun­dreds of dif­fer­ent ways:

• Sprin­kle a lit­tle in smelly shoes to deodor­ize them

• Make a paste to gen­tly scrub away scuffs and cray­on marks from walls.

• Sprin­kle on a damp sponge to clean stain­less all around the kitchen with­out scratching

• Mix a pinch with your facial cleanser for a gen­tle, yet effec­tive, exfoliant

• Sprin­kle on car­pets, wait 15 min­utes, then vac­u­um up smells

• And much more

I’m a huge fan of Arm & Ham­mer Bak­ing Soda, from brush­ing my teeth (Arm & Ham­mer tooth­paste with mint) to fresh­en­ing the car­pet to unclog­ging the toi­let (mix bak­ing soda with vine­gar but stand back! — then fol­low with very hot water). Nev­er used it to bake cook­ies, though. So it real­ly is for bak­ing, huh?

Armand Hammer

Armand Hammer

Armand Hammer 1898 – 1990 
Pictured here in 1982
Composite graphic by Chaz DeSimone

I’m also a huge fan of any­one who buys out a com­pa­ny just because it sounds like his name. That’s what Armand Ham­mer did (sort of). First, a lit­tle about Armand Ham­mer — or spelled Amper­Art style, Arm& Ham­mer. Here’s an excerpt from Wikipedia:

Ham­mer (1898 – 1990) was born in New York City. His father came to the Unit­ed States from Odessa in the Russ­ian Empire (today Ukraine) in 1875, and set­tled in the Bronx, where he ran a gen­er­al med­ical prac­tice and five drugstores.

Ham­mer was named after the “arm & ham­mer” graph­ic sym­bol of the Social­ist Labor Par­ty of Amer­i­ca, in which his father had a lead­er­ship role.

He attend­ed med­ical school at Colum­bia (M.D., 1921). After grad­u­at­ing from med­ical school, Ham­mer extend­ed ear­li­er entre­pre­neur­ial ven­tures with a suc­cess­ful busi­ness import­ing many goods from and export­ing phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals to the new­ly formed Sovi­et Union, togeth­er with his younger broth­er Victor.

Ham­mer entered into a diverse array of busi­ness, art, cul­tur­al, and human­i­tar­i­an endeav­ors, includ­ing invest­ing in var­i­ous U.S. oil pro­duc­tion efforts. These oil invest­ments were lat­er par­layed into con­trol of Occi­den­tal Petro­le­um. Nation­al Geo­graph­ic described Occi­den­tal chair­man Ham­mer as “a pio­neer in the syn­fu­els boom.”

Ham­mer pur­chased Knoedler, the old­est art gallery in Amer­i­ca, in 1971. He was a col­lec­tor of Impres­sion­ist and Post-​Impressionist paint­ings. His per­son­al dona­tion forms the core of the per­ma­nent col­lec­tion of the UCLA Ham­mer Muse­um in Los Ange­les, Cal­i­for­nia. Togeth­er with his broth­er Vic­tor, he was the own­er of the famed “Ham­mer Gal­leries” in New York City.

 

Ham­mer was a phil­an­thropist, sup­port­ing caus­es relat­ed to edu­ca­tion, med­i­cine, and the arts. Among his lega­cies is the Armand Ham­mer Unit­ed World Col­lege of the Amer­i­can West (now gen­er­al­ly called the UWC-​USA, part of the Unit­ed World Col­leges). By the time of his death, Ham­mer had won the Sovi­et Union’s Order of Friend­ship of Peo­ples, the U.S. Nation­al Medal of Arts (1987), France’s Legion of Hon­or, Italy’s Grand Order of Mer­it, Swe­den’s Roy­al Order of the Polar Star, Aus­tri­a’s Knight Com­man­der’s Cross, Pak­istan’s Hilal-​i-​Quaid-​Azam Peace Award, Israel’s Lead­er­ship Award, Venezue­la’s Order of Andrés Bel­lo, Mex­i­co’s Nation­al Recog­ni­tion Award, Bul­gar­i­a’s Jubilee Medal, and Bel­gium’s Order of the Crown. Ham­mer hun­gered for a Nobel Peace Prize, and was repeat­ed­ly nom­i­nat­ed for one, but nev­er won.

In 1986, Forbes mag­a­zine esti­mat­ed his net worth at $200 million.

Arm & Hammer

In the 1980s Ham­mer owned a con­sid­er­able amount of stock in Church & Dwight, the com­pa­ny that man­u­fac­tures Arm & Ham­mer prod­ucts; he also served on its board of direc­tors. How­ev­er, the Arm & Ham­mer com­pa­ny’s brand name did not orig­i­nate with Armand Ham­mer. It was in use some 31 years before Ham­mer was born.

So you see, Armand Ham­mer actu­al­ly owned part of Arm & Ham­mer. I think that’s cool. I’d sure like to be able to pur­chase a com­pa­ny that has my name as its brand. (Hey, wait a minute — I do: Des­i­mone Design.) I sup­pose if Armand’s name was instead Mike Rosoft he would have owned a chunk of that com­pa­ny, too.

Amperbr&

This Amper­Art piece, #90 Arm & Ham­mer, is the sec­ond in the Amperbr& series. The first is #89 Guns & Ros­es (with an inter­est­ing his­to­ry about the mid-​century idiom & years lat­er, nam­ing the band).

Arm & HammerArm & Hammer logoThe focal point of each Amperbr& poster is the amper­sand, & obvi­ous­ly only brands are fea­tured that con­tain “&” or “and” or the con­trac­tion “n” (there are sur­pris­ing­ly many). Promi­nent col­ors & shapes of each brand’s logo & trade dress are fea­tured in each piece. In #90 Arm & Ham­mer, the amper­sand is an exact repro­duc­tion of the amper­sand in the logo­type, at the same angle. The burst is radi­at­ing at var­i­ous strengths as well, same as the pack­age. (That was an inter­est­ing dis­cov­ery.) Final­ly, the bor­der dis­plays the red, blue & flesh (the arm) as on the logo &packaging. The col­ors are sam­pled & matched to the brand palette.

Orig­i­nal­ly, the con­cept was to con­tain the brand ele­ments with­in a square, with the name of the brand set in a non­de­script font top & bot­tom, as such:

Arm & Hammer

But you, my dear amper­sand fan, are intel­li­gent & sophis­ti­cat­ed. I need not insult you by spelling out what brand each image rep­re­sents. (How­ev­er, if you are unfa­mil­iar with the brand, it’s in the title of the poster.)

Logos have been my pas­sion since I was a kid. My first logo was a star with a cir­cle drawn around it. It was for an imag­i­nary com­pa­ny called Cir­cle Star. I have no idea how I came up with that name nor what the “com­pa­ny” did. But that was my first logo, prob­a­bly before I even heard that term. (“Cor­po­rate iden­ti­ty” entered my vocab­u­lary not too much later.)

I am very excit­ed about this new series, Amperbr&. Expect a new piece every so often with­in the Amper­Art series of “Ordi­nary Phras­es & Amper­sands Extra­or­di­naire.” Once again, I thank you for your inter­est & sup­port in Amper­Art. I wish you an Awe­some & Amaz­ing New Year.


chaz sez ...

Check out the new “chaz sez” blog at Des​i​moneDesign​.com, my com­mer­cial graph­ic design web­site. It’s most­ly about design, typog­ra­phy, print­ing, pub­lish­ing & mar­ket­ing, but on occa­sion I’ll divert to a side­ways top­ic that just can’t escape my rant­i­ng & raving.


Production notes for #90 Arm & Hammer:
Original size: 20x30 inches

Program: Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Illustrator
Ampersand font: traced from logo — at the same angle — but appears to be a condensed version of Azkidenz Grotesk Extended, if that makes sense. (The words “ARM” & “HAMMER” resemble Franklin Gothic.)
Credits:
Early packaging image: TIAS​.com The Internet Antique Shop. This is one fun website!
Armand Hammer photo: Wikipedia​.com Composite by Chaz DeSimone
Arm & Hammer logo: armand​ham​mer​.com
You may repost the image. Please credit Amper​Art​.com.
To download a full-​size high-​resolution 11x17-​inch poster, click on the image.

For pro­fes­sion­al graph­ic design, please vis­it Des­i­mone Design.

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