The 1950s was an era where "cartoony" print ads were everywhere, and looking back on that time it's easy to think of all the different drawing styles featured in those ads as having coalesced into one distinct "50s style." Even glancing at the thumbnails of this Flickr set once can tell the ads are from the 50s, but take a closer look and see how different many of them actually are. Now that the ads are vintage and many of the products no longer exist anymore, they can be looked upon as small works of art rather than advertisements. It makes me wonder if any of today's print advertising has that kind of longevity, the ability to survive past its role as a means of touting a product and live on as something purely aesthetic. I'm too young to have seen these kind of ads originally, but looking through them reminded me of growing up and seeing such ads in my dad's old comic books, so I guess I'm allowed a little bit of nostalgia.

[via Boing Boing]