With the completion of the Transcontinental Railroad, produce could travel all over the United States with ease. To stand out from competitors, farmers shifted from stencil-marked crates to vivid
crate labels, which were largely replaced by lower-cost cardboard boxes in the 1950s and 60s, allowing images to be printed right onto the boxes. These vivid bits of history are now
bought, sold, and traded by collectors (
related gallery).
Blue Sky Search and
California Bountiful have articles on the rise and fall of produce labels, and the subsequent collection of these art pieces.
Boston Public Library has a high-quality, larger format Flickr gallery, but the collection is limited.
Pat Jacob's Fruit Crate Labels has a collection of small images and a lot of information for collectors, and
Crate Label Museum has an extensive collection, though the images are smaller than those in the Boston Public Library's collection.
posted by filthy light thief
on Feb 7, 2012 -
19 comments
Toilet gaming. [bbc.co.uk] When men use a public urinal they are cruelly left in full view, with nothing to do as they answer nature's call. Until now. British company Captive Media thinks it has developed a product that fills a gap in the market - a urinal mounted, urine-controlled games console for men.
posted by Fizz
on Dec 4, 2011 -
87 comments
Caution: Disturbing, potentially triggering and possibly NSFW content: The Meth Project, known for their gritty, confrontational and disturbing
online and
print ads, which graphically depict the effects of methamphetamine drug use, launched a
new, interactive website last week. The revamped site gives visitors an opportunity to
share their own stories. They've also premiered four new 30-second television PSA's by the director of
Black Swan and
Requiem for a Dream, Darren Aronofsky:
E.R.,
Deep End,
Losing Control and
Desperate.
(Via) [more inside]
posted by zarq
on Nov 16, 2011 -
103 comments
"There was no sleight of hand; each bite was cut open, pushed back together, then dropped on a table. The goal was to see moist white meat when it bounced."
Inside the world of tabletop directing - the people whose job it is to make food look delicious.
posted by mippy
on Oct 10, 2011 -
46 comments
Most people know that Venice has long been threatened by chronic flooding, but in recent years the Queen of the Adriatic has faced a rising tide of a different sort:
advertising.
From the
Doge's Palace to
St. Mark's Square to the bittersweet
Bridge of Sighs -- named for the grief its splendid views once inspired in crossing death row prisoners -- immense billboards
lit late into the night now mar the city's most treasured places.
Allegedly built to cover the cost of restoration work in the face of government cutbacks, the ads have brought in around $600,000 per year since 2008 -- a fraction of the shortfall -- and show no sign of going away any time soon. Their presence prompted a consortium of the world's leading cultural experts led by the
Venice in Peril Fund to air
an open letter demanding the city government put a stop to the placards that "hit you in the eye and ruin your experience of one of the most beautiful creations of humankind." Mayor Giorgio Orsoni, for one, was not moved, saying last year "If people want to see the building
they should go home and look at a picture of it in a book."
posted by Rhaomi
on Oct 4, 2011 -
59 comments
The Other Mad Men. It's been accepted more or less as a truism that black people didn't work on Madison Avenue in the 1960s. But facts are stubborn things. There were black people in advertising even then, some (a few) in high places. Contrary to the popular assumption, blacks in that era met with success and challenges on Madison Avenue, like everywhere else.
posted by sweetkid
on Sep 19, 2011 -
28 comments
Scott Kurtz draws and writes one of the Internet's oldest webcomics,
PvP. He launched it in 1998 and, since then, has won two Eisner Awards and a Harvey Award for his work. Scott has been a trendsetter for webcomics before, infamously (and frequently controversially) brash in defense of its business model, especially in the face of criticism from old media. Today, he announced that he will be
selling product placement in his strips, starting with an arc focused on
Magic: The Gathering. This is a webcomics first. Will it prove a boon to the financial success of artists, or a burden on the freedoms they've won? Or will it catch on at all beyond PvP?
posted by gilrain
on Jul 22, 2011 -
75 comments
From bouffants du jour and shampoo secrets of the stars to yesteryear's 'dos and you-know-you-want-it accessories, if it's about hair, you'll find it at the always entertaining
Hair Hall of Fame.
posted by madamjujujive
on Jun 19, 2011 -
6 comments
