Enjoy this fun and swanky Ford commercial from 1960 linking new compact cars to futurism and the space frontier. They don’t make commercials like this anymore, do they? If you like this, there is a ton of more of old commericals and archive footage to be found in the Prelinger Archives at the ever so great archive.org website.

More airline retro goodness from a TWA commercial made in the early 1970s. Looks cheesy but still delicious in some odd way.

I am not only interested in vintage design, architecture, lounge music and umm… stewardesses but also graphic design and typography seeing it has been my major subject in college and what what I work with for a living in a way. One thing that caught my attention lately are those old handwritten posters and placates that were found in major stores and outlets. Handwritten of course, they were in their own way a work of art. Done correctly they would both look elegant and selling. Of course, the effect would be the opposite if they were done the wrong way. Here are a couple of nice examples taken from a book about how to learn the quick lettering technique used for signs and billboards. Now grab your pens and start practicing.

Remember what is was like before Southwest Airlines? Well, I don’t. But it looks all good to me. Here are two early 1970s ads from the Dallas based airline Southwest Airlines and Miami based National Airlines. Both rather sexist, created to attract the attention of male passengers using tightly fitted outfits on the stewardesses along with broadcast and print campaigns suggesting that you could “fly” a stewardess to your destination of choice. Good times indeed.

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