The Story of an advertisement

While perusing a late friend's collection of graphic design ephemera, I came upon a fascinating little book entitled “The Story of an Advertisement” produced in 1922 by the Erwin, Wasey & Company advertising agency. The narrative inside the oddly printed cover, explains to the layman exactly what goes into the conceptual, formal and technical production of an advertisement. 

While a big fan of the formal aspects of historical graphic design, where I really nerd out is in the technical and human labor aspects of production and printing and how they have changed over time. I love thinking about all the individuals involved in contrast to the solitary digital workflow I experience today. There's no doubt that this piece, undoubtedly a Christmas promotion, was an eye-opener for a prospective client as to what actually transpires in the process of creating an ad, and why it costs what it does to do so. Ho, ho ho!

As if the curiousness of this small book-of-hours-like piece wasn't enough, my great aunt and my mother had both worked in Wasey's New York office both when it was Erwin, Wasey & Company and after it merged with Ruthrauff & Ryan to form Erwin, Wasey, Ruthrauff & Ryan in 1957. I heard many great stories from my mom about her glory days working as a receptionist in their offices in the Graybar Building on Lexington Ave. and flirting with the guys in the creative bullpen!

As you'll see in the images I've attached, there is some great copywriting about the process of it all and set in a most traditional storybook kind of way. I particularly loved the spelling of client approvals as “Okeh”. Then, images of the process follow to further explain just how the ad is built, furthering the viewer's understanding of why the ad looks the way it does. 

But the real clincher is the way the covers are printed. They are a deboss into a leatherette-like cover stock, which is glued as a duplex. It's discolored due to age, and has a nice veneer. This looks an awful lot like a polymer plate for relief printing, except it's not relief. I did some cursory looking to see if a polymer plate was even a thing in 1922, but didn't really spend enough time at it. At any rate, I'm pretty certain that this cover treatment is some kind of direct analogy to the tactility of the printing process. 

It's a gem of my collection <3.