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Design

Fading and Beautiful Ghost Signs in New York City

By Emily Temple on

However unceasing our culture’s push towards modernity, there are, thankfully, some things that stick with us. In Fading Ads of New York City, recently published by the History Press, Frank H. Jump collects photographs of the fading ghost signs of New York, a project that he began after learning he was H.I.V. positive at age 26. Jump wrote, “The sense of urgency I felt every day drove me to document New York’s fading advertisements, and capture the marks left by artists and artisans, most long since dead, who spent their lives painting huge commercial murals over the last 150 years.” There are thousands of these fading signs all over the country, especially in New York. Some are beautiful in design, some are funny, some are almost gone. Click through to see a few of our favorite finds, from Jump’s book and beyond. … Read More

Media

15 Totally Surreal Vintage Ads

By Emily Temple on

We all know that we’ve come a long way. As science, social consciousness and heath awareness develop and improve, so have the reflections of our culture that we see in our advertisements. In this age of skillful, slick, integrated marketing and advertising-as-content, a concept that is surreal in and of itself, we thought we’d take a look at the advertisements of yore, which had to make do with simple paper and ink — not that these boundaries made them any less hallucinatory than the fake Times Square hack. These ads, which range from fever dream to nightmare in their surreality, make us feel weird inside. Did people ever respond to these? Probably. Click through for 15 of the most bizzarely surreal vintage ads we could get our digital paws on, and get ready to look at your grandparents in a whole new light. … Read More

Tech

Pretty Ladies Posing with Obsolete Technology

By Judy Berman on

Jean-Luc Godard’s famous filmmaking recipe: “All you need to make a movie is a girl and a gun.” But in the world of advertising, all you need to sell the newest high-tech gadget is a girl and… actually, that’s it. Just a girl. And, as far as we can tell, this has been true since the beginning of time — or, at least, for the past 100 years. Which means that there are many wonderful images floating around of beautiful women snuggling up to obsolete technology, from phonographs and typewriters to boomboxes and Walkmen. Enjoy ten of our favorite such images (and feel free to start an entire Tumblr based on this premise, as long as you let us know you’re doing it so we can follow you), after the jump. … Read More