Vintage French Ads

I hate cats.

Not only do I have a severe allergic reaction whenever one is near, but it seems that if you have any sort of interest in blogging at all, someone who follows your writing (and perhaps you follow in return) will want to speak to you in depth about what their cat is doing at any given time.

I might not care that Princess Fluffybutt  looks cute when sunbathing, but I listen anyway. This is incredibly similar to how I feel about old French advertisements.

design by Théophile-Alexandre Steinlen

When people think of vintage ads, or display any in their home, they tend to be full of cats. The classic Le Chat Noir to be more specific. But unlike the aforementioned Princess Fluffybutt, Le Chat Noir is iconic. It's about atmosphere and design aesthetic, history and culture.

While I wouldn't want to change my friends (cat-lovers and all), I can change my choice of wall hanging, and while Le Chat Noir is incredibly popular, vintage ads have a variety of products to sell - including bicycles, chocolate, and lots and lots of alcohol.

I have incredibly fond memories of chocolate. As a woman, I feel compelled to make fond memories of chocolate at least once a month... but even as a child, growing up in a city with a Nestle chocolate factory assured that waking up in the morning smelled amazing.

Didn't hurt to have the right connections either. Crunch bars with pictures of Pocahontas and John Smith on them will forever be one of my favorite freebies.

design by Firmin Bouisset

A Chocolat Menier poster will forever be one of my favorite advertisements.

There's something incredibly charming about the little girl in the ad. Maybe it's the double braid (that I could never pull off without being called Pippi), or the sense of mischief in writing on a wall, which most of us were never supposed to do with Mom's lipstick. I could have been intrigued by the closed umbrella or the bright, bold colors with yellow and blue when chocolate always pops into mind as a rich brown.

Whatever the initial attraction, I've always wanted to see advertisements return to the uniqueness of these older designs. It might seem unwise for a company to advertise a product without capturing the exact look of the object using specific lighting techniques and a powerful photo lens, but there is something to be said about the way advertisement is often linked to art and design. Photography can be a beautiful medium, and I would never turn my back on a good PS image, but it couldn't hurt to employ a few artists to an advertising job and make good use of the printing press, could it?

Just don't look to me for the first design, unless you're attempting to sell stick figures.

Oh, and to my friends Circe and Luna - I owe you each a chocolate bar. You'll know why (nyan).