Jensen's “Crystal” Pepsin

Letter from J. C Perry & Co., Sole Travelling and Advertising Agents of Carl L. Jensen’s  Preparations, recently found by me stuck between pages in an old book. 

Ads for the Crystal Pepsin can be found here in the Dietetic and Hygienic Gazette, Volume 6, Issue 8, October 1890 and here in the The National Druggist, Volume 12, Issue 8, April 15, 1888. Many other great ads can be found by scrolling through these two links.

19th Century Trade Cards and Advertisements

via letterology
“With so few marketing options available for shopkeepers in the 19th C, the trade card was considered an essential form of advertising. Designers were just as compelled to create sharp examples of typography and printing then as they are today—much of it hand lettered and illustrated to promote their skills. American cards were intended to be more colorful than some of the European cards and they soon became quite collectable. These ornate trade cards eventually evolved into the business card as we know it today…”
See more examples here, and here at Sheaff: Ephemera listed under The Printing Trades tab.

Ads Worth Spreading

via TED

“The 10 winners of TED’s inaugural Ads Worth Spreading initiative have been announced from the stage. Selected from more than 1,000 submissions from around the world, they are some of the most creative, compelling and out-of-the-box communications of the past year. The winners are a truly diverse group — from major agencies to tiny boutiques to college students and non-profits, hailing from around the world.

Chris Anderson had this to say about the effort: “We’re seeking to reverse the trend of ads being aggressively forced on users. We want to nurture ads so good you choose to watch – and share. On TED.com, ads run after our talks, not before. As well as avoiding the annoyance of interruption, this positioning means they can run longer than the TV-standard 30-seconds. And that’s the key — in 2-3 minutes, there’s more time to tell a story, share an idea, make an authentic human connection. These winning ads, many of them long-form, powerfully demonstrate these strengths. We think they represent an exciting new way for companies to engage with the world in the internet age.”

Read the rest here, and watch the videos here.