History of Graphic Design through Publications: ADVERTISING ARTS

Location: Special Collections

The Library owns 14 issues of Advertising Arts from the early 1930s as well as several other early publications, such as Commercial Art and Alphabet and Image.

All quotes from "Advertising Arts: America Becomes Modern(istic)" by Steven Heller which was originally published in U&lc, Vol. 36, No.1, Summer 1999.

"Advertising Arts maintained a niche and succeeded in raising the level of design sophistication through advocacy of the "modernistic." And today, over sixty years later, it remains an important historical document in defining the evolution from work-a-day commercial art to sophisticated graphic design."

"When Advertising Arts made its debut during the Great Depression, the economy was at its nadir and desperation was at its zenith. Unless advertising and public relations men... could help resuscitate the economy, the nation would plummet further into the abyss - and with it the advertising industry."

"Advertising Arts promulgated a design fashion unique to the United States during the early 1930s, called the Streamline Style."

"I Believe in Design"