G.O.A.T. - Happy Birthday!!!

Happy Birthday to the Greatest Of All Time, Muhammad Ali.

Corbis

Pierre-Laurent Brenot Lido Postcards

Great advertising postcards for Lido Champs Elysees Paris by Pierre-Laurent Brenot.

The artist at work

Miss America Pageant Parade Press Tags

With the 2012 Miss America Pageant coming up next weekend, I thought this would be a good time to show a couple of press tags that I picked up several years ago on ebay.

The die-cut tags are on colored stock and are blank backed. They are perforated at the bottom. I can only assume that the bottom piece which is torn off had repeat information from the top of the tag.

The first tag is from 1948. The winner that year was BeBe Shopp from Minnesota.

Corbis Images

The tag is from 1950. The was the first year the pageant started post dating the award. The made the 1950 winner actually Miss America 1951. This honor went to Yolande Betbeze.

Corbis Images

Save The Date - Inspiration Vol. 3: "Go GloCal!"

Save the date. It's almost time for Rin Tanaka's Inspiration Show Vol. 3: "Go GloCal!"

Happy New Year from the American Oil Company

To all the readers and followers of The Design Morgue, we wish everyone a happy and a healthy New Year.

Last year at this time we took a look at one of my favorite illustrators, J.C. Leyendecker, and his New Year's babies for The Saturday Evening Post.

This year we'll take a look at Leyendecker's babies again, but this time they are pictured on ink blotters for The American Oil Company (AMOCO). Also included in this group is another favorite illustrator, Norman Rockwell.

All of these, with exception of the 1942 and 1948, are from my personal collection. I have looked for other years with Leyendecker and Rockwell, but haven't been able to locate any.

It's interesting to note that Leyendecker's work for The Saturday Evening Post came before Rockwell and here Rockwell's work appeared first.

Happy 2012!

Merry Christmas!

The Design Morgue would like to wish everyone a Merry Christmas. Hopefully you weren't to naughty this year and you'll get everything you wished for.

This little piece of Christmas ephemera is from the Central Savings Bank in New York City. The die-cut could be used as a hanging ornament or the bottom could be folded as a stand up. It was used to promote the banks Christmas Club. I'm not sure if banks still do Christmas Clubs, but it would be nice if they still had cool Christmas stuff like this.

Happy Hanukkah - 1944 style

Happy Hanukkah to all my Jewish readers out there. The above Hanukkah greeting is post marked December 26, 1944. These postcards were apparently supplied to Jewish servicemen by the USO. It's interesting to note that this card had to pass through Army censorship as noted by the stamps on the back.