What you didn't know about airports.

The next time you and the family are about to fly off on holiday and with plenty of spare time at the airport, your kids may well ask: "Why is that jet being towed?" or "Can the pilot see in the dark?" or "Does a runway need cleaning?" If you don't know the answers (and dads don't always know everything) this fascinating book will answer these questions and lots more.

Airports, with lovely illustrations by Maxim Usik, gives a very thorough explanation of what goes on in these places. There are bird's-eye spreads of outside and inside airport buildings, followed by illustrated pages of questions and answers, nicely, the questions are just what curious kids might ask. The spread pictures are full of interesting detail. The security one has an official holding up a bottle found in mum's luggage, she throws up her arms in surprise. The back pages have a Glossary and an Index.

UK

Airports: Behind the Scenes : Hardisty, Laurence, Usik, Maxim: Amazon.co.uk: Books

A decline in print ad creativity

The complete collection, so far.

The latest book for my collection, bringing it up to ten titles. In the intro, Steve Heller makes a good point: the ad industry started a decline in creativity around 2000. Print media outlets for ads were slowly evaporating and the advance of digital media was expanding so that ads evolved from print to the small screen and with the advent of cell phones, a very small screen. Looking at the hundreds of ads in these pages, it seems that the bland has taken over. Photos are in with relatively small, straightforward headlines. There are very few purely typographic ads or strong illustrations that were prominent in the books from previous decades.

If you have some previous editions, you'll be familiar with the format. The ads are divided into ten categories and presented as, occasionally one over a spread, or one to a page and four to a page. Like the other books, they are printed on decent matt art paper. This title (and the 90s) is hardcover; all the others had slightly oversized soft covers.

Here's an interesting point about previous decade editions, especially if you want to buy them. Taschen have reprinted them with fewer pages than the original ones. I've only checked out five titles with the original pages and reprint pages in brackets:

30s ISBN 3822816205   Pages 768  (Reprint 640)

40s 3822814687   768 (704) 

50s 3822811580   928 (679)

60s 3822811599   960  (639)

70s 382281265x   704  (638)

The 50s and 60s have had a sizeable page reduction.

 

The suburban mom needs a new car every year 5/5

Detroit's car makers must have cheered the suburbs. The book's first chapter says that in 1940, only 19.5 per cent of Americans lived in suburbs but by 1950 to 1970, 83 per cent of the population lived in them. Here was a chance for the two-family car, the lady of the house needed wheels for shopping, school runs and local travel. As well as selling to Dad, now car makers would spend ad dollars persuading the suburban ladies that this year's model was just what she needed. Of course, it was the same car whether ma or pa bought it and the editorial of the book just considers car ads aimed at the ladies.

What I enjoyed about the title is the dozens of ads that are a reasonable size, so that the copy can be read. Mad men churned out over-the-top hype about every year's new model that had improved engine performance, interior elegance and trendy exterior colors. The ad photos obviously required a lady at the wheel and what better than a model wearing the latest European couture.

I think it's worth saying that this isn't a book about mid-century design in the broadest sense. Any reasonable book about that probably wouldn't include any of the cars featured in these ads. Well-designed products don't change every year but last year in and out. Detroit's cars were sort of the opposite of good design.