I was giving my Facebook profile some attention the other day and I couldn’t think of any “favorite quotes”. This struck me as kind of a shame because I know I have read a lot of fantastic quotes. Actually there was one great quote I did remember word for word:
“I am gonna march you over to the zoo and feed you to the yak.”
This was a line in Breakfast at Tiffany’s, and it was spoken by the character Mag Wildwood, who was quite intoxicated (and apparently cantankerous) at the time. Maybe it isn’t the one quote I should remember—after all I did graduate from UCSB with a BA in English—but at least IMDb recognizes it is a memorable quote from the movie.
So since working on my FB profile I have had my ears and eyes out for great quotes, sayings, and phrases. And yesterday I found one I have liked ever since I first heard it: Loose Lips Sink Ships. It was written on a poster size piece of paper that was pinned over the doorway at a friend’s house in Oakland. It’s an Oaksterdam house, if you get what I mean.
Anyway, I never knew that this phrase was American wartime propaganda and appeared on WWII period posters such as this one. I followed one of the poster images I found on Google to it’s source and discovered this delightful, though short-lived little blog called Wesayso Propaganda: Vintage ads, classic posters, World War II and Russian Propaganda retro art. There are only two posts on the blog—one of them features the WWII propaganda posters and the other features vintage ads for new products, both were published in 2008.
Ever since the framed artwork I had in our bathroom fell down and broke, ruining the artwork inside, I have been on the lookout for a new artsy image to fill the space. Hello, vintage ads for new products! Here are my favorites of those featured on the Wesayso blog:
I’m hoping to brainstorm some ideas for additional vintage ads for even more modern products – the possibilities must be absolutely endless, what with the explosion of social media and smart phones. I’ll let y’all see if I come up with anything good of course. Thank you to the Wesayso Propaganda blog for the inspiration and images!
Makes me wonder how many blogs out there have been rotting away with only two posts for as many years, but still have content that’s relevant to some people (people that is, who are, ahem, internet savvy) and comes up at the top of google keyword searches!
I found some more good vintage ads for new products here. But the more of these ads I see, the more outdated they seem, as a set. Where’s the iPhone, Twitter, Facebook? Bluetooth hands-free devices? Telecommuting? Energy drinks? Let me know if you have any good ideas for vintage ads for super new products.
This is a link to Seth Godin’s blog post that links to a great resource for vintage ads, which might help get your creative juices flowing.