The History Behind Vintage Advertising Signs

By Katy Kline


Vintage advertising signs have been around for hundreds of years. The give people the opportunity to talk about events in a community or advertise some type or product or idea. Without this our lives would not be the same, nor would our businesses.

In the 1960s very colorful and whimsical signs were popular. People at the time wanted lots of colors. While if you look at the 1980s basic colors with a few splashes of neon was popular. Also the photos were pretty realistic, nothing too crazy. This shows us that everything was based on the time period. The purpose of the adverts is to get peoples attention and if it can do this, then its purpose was fulfilled.

Advertisements used to be giant and hang high over shops and businesses. This may have been around the 17th century, but even then they had enough sense to know this was dangerous. Since these were not well fastened to the shop, they had the tendency to fall. This meant crushed people in the streets. There was a ruling made that stopped these from being hung. Years later it was decided they were to be allowed but only on the condition that everything was well secured to a building or wall.

When the light bulb was created in the 19th century, it changed everything. People now wanted this spectacular item in their posters. This meant a new vivid way to advertise, something that had not been seen before.

The first neon tube was viewed in 1921, which was during the 20th century. This became the next most popular item to go with signs. This was most popular in cities and made for a great lite up town at night. People were very excited to see these lights as it was different from anything they had seen before.

During a few wars there was a complete cut of the use of metal and tin. They could be used for nothing but war efforts. This really hit companies hard. They had to find an alternate solution. Plastic was what jumped at them. It was pretty inexpensive and very functional. Exactly what they had been looking for.

Neon was used more infrequently as time went on. In the 1950s neon may have still been less expensive but plastic was being used over it. It was the better option because it was easier to use. With the neon you had to have an agreement thought another place. This meant more hassle for you and less profit. Companies decided to take to plastic and make product quicker. This got rid of the extra contract as well as made signs easier to access.

During the war tin and metal were marked unusable except for war efforts. This made companies switch to plastic. Before this there had been many neon signs as well as ones with light bulbs. When plastic became the new in material everything changed. Vintage advertising signs have changed much over the years, although one thing will always remain the same, without all the advances our society would not be anywhere near what it is now.




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