Eros Magazine / issue two / summer 1962

Issue two of the sex quartely carried on where the first one left off with another selection of articles and visual features brilliantly laid out by Art Director Herb Lubalin. The mix was as before: the sex pundits of the time, the Kronhausen's, contributed an essay; sex curiosity of the issue was the US Patent Office male chastity belt; photo feature of the erotic sculptures of Konarak, lovingly photographed by Eliot Elisofon; a handsome visual treat with the cigar box labels (this is usually the item used on books about graphic design history to showcase the work of Lubalin).
   An interesting feature are the last sixteen pages where Ginsburg used feedback from the three million mailers (above and I'm still skeptical about that huge number, if only because of the postage costs) that were sent out for charter suscribers. Deeply conservative 1962 America let loose with these replies and as Ginzburg says: 'Please bear in mind that these negative criticisms were made several months before the first issue of Eros had appeared and that the people who wrote these letters were objecting to the mere concept of magazine devoted entirely to Love and Sex'.
    The production of Eros was was as good as the first with a selection of papers and printing techniques. A 175 screen for the four color on a semi gloss and a dense matt black for the two photo features, Paris and India, on a medium weight bond.

Selling creativity in the Sixties / part 1

Two examples of art studio promotion from Chicago and San Francisco in 1960. The eight page fold-out was an insert in the April 1960 edition of Art Direction magazine. I only kept it because of the illustrations, a good example of various styles available back then. Chicago's Stowell Studios probably disappeared years ago but in any large city or town there were Stowell equivalents providing creative services to regional and local advertisers. They were primarily a photo studio that branched out to provided a roster of freelance artists. Stevenson Graphics shouted out with this calling card box. Inside were thirteen business cards from their artists. A simple, inexpensive idea for their clients that had a practical use as well.
　

Great Ideas book / part two / Container Corporation of America

The next twenty-five ads in the Great Ideas series, published between July 1952 and June 1954. There is a slow move away from representational figurative art towards a more graphic and typographic interpretation of the Ideas. This trend continued right up to the last ad (195) in June 1975
    The ads were reprinted in a sumptuous book put out by CCA in 1976. Each spread (left) had some biographic detail about the thinker and artist on the left with the art on the right. To show the art as big as possible I’ve not included these text pages as they all looked the same.

The first twenty-five ads in the series, published from July 1950 

to June 1952, are in the October 2011 archive.