Today’s collection is a grab bag of midcentury North American restaurant placemats. Most of these date from the late 1940s through the ’50s, when the postwar boom and expanding highway system put long-distance vacations within reach for a growing middle class in both the US and Canada.
I've started scanning all the old magazines from Iran and will share them soon but this is truly inspiring. Imagine if we could still see beautiful mats in restaurants now!!! I'm always trying to convince my friends who run businesses like this to bring these little details back, but no luck so far, haha!
I think you should do napkins or menus next if you can find any.
There is also this one really kind lady in LA who has an amazing archive of magazines and she sometimes vendors at events. Here is her website https://mac.hwd.mybluehost.me/
You should check it out while you are here if that interests you. I would also be happy to come with :)
Endlessly fascinated by bubble gum packaging (the package and each of the wrappers) and matchbooks! I think both would be great deep-dives. Love these placemats.
I love these! These posts inspire me so much. I’ve been a fan since I looked you up from the first issue of The Wing!
I personally love seeing all the different types of packaging for fertilizer/plant food! It’s either very simple percentages and a name slapped on a white bag or a crazy illustration of shiny fish with cartoon grass (like the freaks at Foxfarm are doing). The juxtaposition always makes me laugh. If you dive in, I hope you enjoy!
These are great! I'd love to see a round up of vintage cook books produced by food companies...like a pamphlet of recipes they put in for free with a bundt pan for example.
I quite simply cannot get over the mind who was sitting in a room with these briefs and came up with these things! like that is the creativity I want to harness at all times! can they bottle it and sell it?
You could talk about literally anything and I think it would be so interesting tbh at the risk of sounding brown nosey but it's true!!! I would love though to hear your thoughts on graphics/packaging from the OG cowboy era to now where we're seeing a cowboy comeback between Beyoncé and Baguu and what maybe it means to us now in this Wild West of a political climate we find ourselves? but also if we're taking anything from the graphics of those days into this cowboy reinvention!
Tool and tool packaging from the 1950's & 60's. GI's came back from the service and in some cases built their own homes using information brochures provided for the cost of reproduction by the USGov. and blades by rockwell, planes by stanley, etc. i have a few.
found you at typographics. worth the price of admission. thank you
Rave and club flyers from the late 80s thru Y2K. That transition from copy/paste Xerox thru early design software thru accessible design software. And basically the design languages that younger designers are rediscovering. Also speaks to many sub and underrepresented cultures.
I love these and am also disturbed by how much my preference for scrambled eggs reveals about my personality? They really have me dead to rights on that one.
Those little thingys that used to go under the cap of glass milk bottles - they are the best examples of using a tiny amount of space effectively to promote a brand - and all in the analog days!
These placemats are amazing—especially seeing them together as a collection. I recently went through my Mom’s childhood scrapbooks and pulled out all of her grade school class Valentine’s. I was thinking about scanning them in as a collection. You’ve inspired me!
The lobster instructions on the "Sea & Surf" placemat were definitely available as a template or clipart, because I remember them from restaurants in my youth ('70s, New Jersey.)
There is still a restaurant near that location in quakertown: https://quakertownfamily.com/ I've been there and it does resemble the exterior shown in the menu, perhaps its the same building. I think the ownership has changed at least a few times since that menu was made, but it still has something of that old diner feel - there is a buffet sometimes, amongst other details. The food is pretty good, I've had both breakfast and dinner there. My mom loves their pancakes.
I've been on lots of vintage furniture rabbit holes lately and I feel like digging into finding vintage furniture labels / tags could be a fun future category... or even the type lockups engraved into drawers?
Love the placemat collection! It’s wild to see how little a meal cost in the ’50s. I’ve been a fan since your amazing Typographic talk, and lately I’ve been diving into historical street views and maps for some work related stuff.
If you’re also interested, check out: https://www.oldmapsonline.org/en#position=3/40.71/-74.01 — it could be a fun resource to curate your next piece of ephemera for the newsletter. OldMaps Online is so cool because you can overlay any old maps with today’s map, and zoom all the way in for those beautiful graphic details <3
I've started scanning all the old magazines from Iran and will share them soon but this is truly inspiring. Imagine if we could still see beautiful mats in restaurants now!!! I'm always trying to convince my friends who run businesses like this to bring these little details back, but no luck so far, haha!
I think you should do napkins or menus next if you can find any.
There is also this one really kind lady in LA who has an amazing archive of magazines and she sometimes vendors at events. Here is her website https://mac.hwd.mybluehost.me/
You should check it out while you are here if that interests you. I would also be happy to come with :)
I'm going to have to check her booth out! Do you know which events they usually shows up for?
I've seen them twice every year at Redo Market. I think you can book a visit or keep up with their events on their IG page.
Endlessly fascinated by bubble gum packaging (the package and each of the wrappers) and matchbooks! I think both would be great deep-dives. Love these placemats.
Hey! I drew your name for the free ticket! Yay! I'll message you with info on how you can claim it <3 https://tinypic.host/image/C7ovx
Ahh thank you so much!!
I love these! These posts inspire me so much. I’ve been a fan since I looked you up from the first issue of The Wing!
I personally love seeing all the different types of packaging for fertilizer/plant food! It’s either very simple percentages and a name slapped on a white bag or a crazy illustration of shiny fish with cartoon grass (like the freaks at Foxfarm are doing). The juxtaposition always makes me laugh. If you dive in, I hope you enjoy!
Omg... No Man's Land! What a throwback. I have never even thought to look up fertilizer packaging!
These are great! I'd love to see a round up of vintage cook books produced by food companies...like a pamphlet of recipes they put in for free with a bundt pan for example.
I quite simply cannot get over the mind who was sitting in a room with these briefs and came up with these things! like that is the creativity I want to harness at all times! can they bottle it and sell it?
You could talk about literally anything and I think it would be so interesting tbh at the risk of sounding brown nosey but it's true!!! I would love though to hear your thoughts on graphics/packaging from the OG cowboy era to now where we're seeing a cowboy comeback between Beyoncé and Baguu and what maybe it means to us now in this Wild West of a political climate we find ourselves? but also if we're taking anything from the graphics of those days into this cowboy reinvention!
Tool and tool packaging from the 1950's & 60's. GI's came back from the service and in some cases built their own homes using information brochures provided for the cost of reproduction by the USGov. and blades by rockwell, planes by stanley, etc. i have a few.
found you at typographics. worth the price of admission. thank you
Rave and club flyers from the late 80s thru Y2K. That transition from copy/paste Xerox thru early design software thru accessible design software. And basically the design languages that younger designers are rediscovering. Also speaks to many sub and underrepresented cultures.
I love these and am also disturbed by how much my preference for scrambled eggs reveals about my personality? They really have me dead to rights on that one.
Those little thingys that used to go under the cap of glass milk bottles - they are the best examples of using a tiny amount of space effectively to promote a brand - and all in the analog days!
These placemats are amazing—especially seeing them together as a collection. I recently went through my Mom’s childhood scrapbooks and pulled out all of her grade school class Valentine’s. I was thinking about scanning them in as a collection. You’ve inspired me!
The lobster instructions on the "Sea & Surf" placemat were definitely available as a template or clipart, because I remember them from restaurants in my youth ('70s, New Jersey.)
There is still a restaurant near that location in quakertown: https://quakertownfamily.com/ I've been there and it does resemble the exterior shown in the menu, perhaps its the same building. I think the ownership has changed at least a few times since that menu was made, but it still has something of that old diner feel - there is a buffet sometimes, amongst other details. The food is pretty good, I've had both breakfast and dinner there. My mom loves their pancakes.
These are fantastic!!
I've been on lots of vintage furniture rabbit holes lately and I feel like digging into finding vintage furniture labels / tags could be a fun future category... or even the type lockups engraved into drawers?
Love the placemat collection! It’s wild to see how little a meal cost in the ’50s. I’ve been a fan since your amazing Typographic talk, and lately I’ve been diving into historical street views and maps for some work related stuff.
If you’re also interested, check out: https://www.oldmapsonline.org/en#position=3/40.71/-74.01 — it could be a fun resource to curate your next piece of ephemera for the newsletter. OldMaps Online is so cool because you can overlay any old maps with today’s map, and zoom all the way in for those beautiful graphic details <3
I’ve been digging qsl cards and old Star Trek fan zines
I did QSL cards a few years ago! https://casualarchivist.substack.com/p/9468644_casual-archivist-ham-handed
I LOVE these. I also love looking at older hand written/drawn menus from around the world