Well-written and red

The weekly Economist magazine (the staff likes to consider it a newspaper) in 1984 asked ad man David Abbott to create some posters to increase the circulation. This handsome-looking book, with 256 pages, features two hundred red-and-white text posters created by ad agencies. The most well-known one is: "I never read the Economist." Management trainee. Ages 42.

The landscape pages display the posters with Alfredo Marcantonio's copy running beside them to reveal the thinking behind some remarkably creative headlines over the years. Copies of the book seem rather rare and expensive, so it's worth searching the net for a copy.

 

Holiday season cheer

Four other seasonal books that are better than Midcentury Christmas.

I thought this was very much a superficial look at everybody's favourite festive season. Publishers love this kind of book; choose a subject, find an author and collect as much visual material as possible (hopefully copyright-free) and get it printed. The four chapters provide a mixed bag of mostly color images just dropped onto each spread. If only the selection of pictures had been more rigorous, for example, dropping the totally non-Christmas black and white photo of three men at the NORAD Air Defence Command center in Coloradio Springs (page 116) and using a grid throughout the book to display the pictures for the reader's benefit. One positive thing about the book is the square format.

I have other books that deliver the Yuletide experience better than Midcentury Christmas. Three by Susan Waggoner: It's wonderful Christmas, Under the tree and Christmas memories are worth checking out and Christmas wishes by Tim Hollis is an excellent look back at how commercial the season can be.