I researched the advertising of the 50s to try and convey the same feel, both visually and through diction, to the mock advertisements and product information sheets I made for the Maker Faire 2010.  Two sources were immensely helpful.

The first is Charlie Allen’s blog.  Mr. Allen was an artist and illustrated many of the beautiful GM ads of the time.  He scans his work periodically and shares it on his blog.

Harley J. Earl was the Vice President of Design at GM during the 40s and 50s.  He is the originator of the concept car and a list of modern automotive styling firsts.  He applied art, science, and showmanship to mass produced automobiles.  There are a lot of pictures to look at here and a more in-depth (but biased) biography can be found on the same site.

Of course, the product names of the 50s are also key to getting the feel right.  Naming combined the optimism of the time, pseudo-scientific sounding prefixes and suffixes, and the space program all rolled into some of the best (and now funniest) sounding products.  Dyna-this, that-a-matic.  I never found a complete list, but perusing archived Fender and Harley product catalogs was sufficient.

Advertising also apparently needed to loudly and wordily tell the viewer what they should be thinking and feeling, rather than the more modern approach of trying to accomplish the same with far fewer words (or none at all– think, for example, of some Apple advertising).    Anyone want a $1 gun?

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