Page 206 - Advertising Annual 57

Jewish Mad Men
Advertising and the Design of
the American Jewish Experience
By Kerri P. Steinberg
232 pages, softcover, $29.95 Published by Rutgers University Press rutgerspress.rutgers.edu
“Like other media ... each ad tells a story,” writes Kerri P. Steinberg in Jewish Mad Men. And when enough ads are collected in one place, they can reveal a rich cultural narrative. In her book, Steinberg explores how advertising reflects and shapes Jewish American culture, presenting a compendium of ads from the 1890s to the present. The book charts certain traditionally Jewish brands, like Manischewitz and Maxwell House, through the years. The “Mad Men” in the title are the influential Jewish advertisers Bill Bernbach of Doyle Dane Bernbach and Albert Lasker of Lord & Thomas, as well as the Jewish ad agency Joseph Jacobs Advertising, famous for positioning Maxwell House coffee as a must for the Passover Seder.
The narrative derived from what the book refers to as “postmodern” ads grabbed
me the most. As Steinberg argues, assimilation of Jewish culture into the American mainstream began after World War II when Jewish traditions and customs were put in the public eye. At the crux of this assimilation sits the famous Levy’s rye bread campaign, with images of non-Jewish people enjoying rye bread and the headline: “You don’t have to be Jewish to love Levy’s.” To quote Steinberg’s thoughts on the campaign’s importance in history: “Just as [Levy’s] bread had shed its overtly ethnic associations ... so too had
many Jews shed their differences to integrate within the broader American society.” The powerful examination not only discusses the nature of culturally specific advertising, but also reveals how a minority culture in America has struggled for acceptance. —Michael Coyne
208 Advertising Annual 2016
The Typography Idea Book Inspiration from
50 Masters
By Steven Heller and Gail Anderson
Looking for ways to
spice up your typographic designs? Look no
further. Less of an instructional book and more of a gallery of concepts, authors Steven Heller and Gail Anderson have collected and categorized 50 different ideas from 50 design and typography masters, including Paula Scher, Alvin Lustig and Mehmet Ali Türkmen. These range from purely typographical concepts—like Herb Lubalin’s famous overlapping of Os in his work for the Cooper Union—to ideas that extend into the realm of editorial design, like Dave Towers’s conceptual layout that spelled out “Tony Kaye” using the text of an interview with the film director in question. As a quick guide with strong visual examples and essays, this great flip-through resource from Heller and Anderson asks us to challenge ourselves with conceptual design. 128 pages, softcover, $17.95, Laurence King Publishing. —M.C.
Automobile Design Graphics A Visual History from the Golden Age to the Gas Crisis 1900–1973
By Steven Heller and
Jim Donnelly
Edited by Jim Heimann
An exploration of persuasive art, Automobile Design Graphics showcases a collection of American automobile brochures from the turn of the century to the early 1970s, graphing the subtle change of consumers’ perception of the car as a rare luxury
good to a modern necessity. Heller and Donnelly’s essays examine the intersection of American culture with automobiles from the blockier, wartime-designed cars of the 1940s to the sleek, fin-obsessed designs
in the 1960s. Divided into chronological chapters, the book’s alphabetized treasury of brochures features glimpses into the past, with images such as glamorous floor shows and illustrations of cars with backseat features like a vase holder. A must-have book for any designer interested in vintage brochure designs or the nostalgic look of classic cars. 369 pages, hardcover, $59.95, Taschen. —M.C.