Friday, December 17, 2010

The Art of Advertising

Back in the golden age of poster art (a period from the late-1800s to the mid-1900s,) advertisers hired talented under-employed artists to create posters that promoted everything from live shows to chocolate to soap. Even though the posters were merely hawking everyday products, they were often beautiful and eye-catching, masterfully created designs. Illustrated posters are not used much in advertising today—probably because of how much time it takes to produce this sort of art, and because most cities have laws against plastering posters on every surface.


Even though posters don’t get much display space in modern commerce, we thought we would revive the long-lost art of illustrated advertising posters in an effort to promote our client’s establishments. Rather than look for commercial wall space, we created the posters to be framed as art that folks would use to decorate interiors—restaurants, homes, offices, etc..

The Wine Shoppe in Green Hills hired us to redesign their logo and create a new branding scheme that emphasized their expertise in rare and imported wines. In addition to creating store signs, biz cards, gift tags and ads, we illustrated a series of 5 classic wine posters. In Tennessee, Wine and Spirits stores are not allowed to sell anything but wine and spirits. They can only use the art to promote the store. But we are selling the prints for $39 each on our Spirit of Nashville poster web site. These limited edition prints make great wall decor for any wine enthusiast. And while they add charm to any kitchen or dining room, they will silently promote the Wine Shoppe for years to come!


Another client, Hog Heaven created 3 new BBQ sauces, but did not have a big marketing budget to advertise. So we took the label art we had designed for the sauce bottles and made posters and tin signs for display in their rib shack and to be sold on-line. These prints will also be available on our Spirit of Nashville site and Nashville Artisans Gallery site in January.

The idea behind making striking poster art is simple: create art that folks love enough to hang on their wall, and you’ll have them staring at your logo all year long! So even if our clients don’t plan to plaster Nashville with poster art, they will still gain prestige and visibility as food poster collectors buy the prints to decorate their home and office walls.





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