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
Telephoneme: Even if your Alphabet Conspiracy succeeds and you destroy the books, machines have no minds of their own. They are easily confused by different voices and different accents. It is the brain of man that tells them what to do.
[more inside]
posted by filthy light thief
on Aug 20, 2010 -
10 comments
The Gallery of Graphic Design has a huge collection of magazine print adverts from the 30s to the late 60s. The images are fairly large and organised/searchable by year, product, magazine and advertiser.
[via]
posted by peacay
on Mar 12, 2008 -
21 comments
Specs spots are commericals shot by people who hope that they'll be considered for shooting real commercials. Because they are vying for attention, some of them can be pretty
outrageous. This site allows you to rank them ala hotornot mode.
My personal
favorite pertains to that "make a wish" ritual around blowing out birthday candles.
What are your favorites?
(Spots themselves are Quicktime links)
posted by jasper411
on Aug 10, 2004 -
10 comments
Google To Start Selling Banner Adverts From the that-didn't-take-too-long-department, Google's ad sales VP Tim Armstrong says Google will now start selling graphical banner adverts. One concession to their old mores is that, for now, the banner adverts will only appear on affiliated websites running their
AdSense referral program (as does MeFi), and there is an opt-out. However...
"We have no plans to show images on Google.com", said Mr. Armstrong
"but we are not opposed to it".
posted by meehawl
on May 12, 2004 -
27 comments
Dude, You're Under Arrest Ben "Dell Dude" Curtis, was arrested in New York last night on charges of criminal possession of marijuana. Thanks to The Smoking Gun we now have something to make us laugh on a Monday.
posted by mkelley
on Feb 10, 2003 -
34 comments
This ad was banned in the UK. Did anyone see it? Sounds cool to me. In a time when advertisers are struggling to capture people's attention and
dull advertising reigns supreme, why haven't we gotten over this fear of offending those with 'delicate' sensibilities?
posted by eas98
on Jun 6, 2002 -
53 comments
I've been using
Kazaa for about a year, but yesterday it spewed out a 30 second audio advertisement for a casino that you couldn't stop, and couldn't get rid of. Quite apart from getting me in deep piles of poo with my boss, surely this is going too far? Audio adverts you can't do anything about - maybe it is time to
move on...
posted by wibbler
on May 14, 2002 -
35 comments
