11 Well-Made Print Advertisements From the Last Century (And How They Hold up Now)
In the history of American advertising, print has played a vital and interesting role. Print advertising has been around as long as any medium, surviving the advent of radio, television, and internet, maintaining its steady influence all the while. There’s something truly iconic about a well-crafted print ad, and the agencies and brands that have done it well over the years have seen immense benefits as a result. Here’s a look at some well-designed print ads from the last 115 years (one from each decade) and an attempt to understand what we can learn from the progression. Changes in taste, disruptive new technologies, and the natural evolution of our cultural propriety have completely transformed the way brands use print mediums to advertise – but certain patterns and threads hold true. Using a modern interpretive lens to reexamine those strategic patterns (and the ads that made use of them) makes for an interesting case study of where we’ve been and where we’re headed - as adver...