I remember some of those. They were pasted on the sides of buildings, up 20-30 feet, so you could see them while driving down the streets.
That's exactly the memory I wanted to bring back. The Hula Bean girl is actually from a coffee shop we visited on vacation in Hawaii a few years back. Not strictly era-appropriate, but the logo carries the spirit of those old ads very well. And this one's not strictly a pin-up girl, but it may be one of the most famous bottoms in American history:
Dandy, just dandy, real eye candy. Thanks for sharing these eye popping vintage signs. Nothing finer.
Candy, Thats a good choice! You know these are the adds that really speak of a time when the world was right. To me there is something a bought a pretty girl dressed just enough to stir the imagination. Today most adds leave little for the imagination, seems like that takes all the intrigue out of it for me. Then to maybe my idea of the “ good old American girl, from down on the farm “. These adds are from before my time, I was born in 1968, however I wonder what my grandpa thought of the adds back then? Did he think they where to racy at the time?
The sign is a home-made decal. I use clear decal paper, and print the sign on my inkjet printer at home. I used Microscale Liquid Decal Film to coat the decal after it's printed. You must seal home-printed decals, or they'll dissolve as soon as they hit the water. (Yeah, you've guessed how I figured that out.) The printer won't do white, and light colors don't show well, either. So, I painted a white rectangle exactly the size of the decal on the building. Once that dried, I applied the decal, let it dry and gave it a shot of Dul-Coat to protect it. This one is my favorite: I'd learned a bit. For this decal, I added the red border to the image. This gives a better edge to the sign, since the hand-painted white rectangle isn't as sharp-edged as I'd like it to be. This one also shows how well just painting that white box on the building works to restore the original colors even though the printer can't do white. These were done after painting and mortaring, by the way. There was even a layer of Dul-Coat on the buildings before the decals went on. That layer makes the surface rough, and adds a lot to the "weathered" look of the signs.
Nice choice. "Dedicated to excellence", eh? The equipment operators seem to be a little distracted from their... ahem... dedication... And I don't think the poodle is responsible. laugh:
