Eastern Europe (a half century ago)

Jane (Maraid) McDevitt has compiled a remarkable Flickr collection of matchbox labels predominantly from 1950s and 1960s Eastern Europe. “Why did this area of the world embrace modern design and imagery when many countries, including Britain, still preferred the Victorian aesthetic?” she ponders. “As with advertisers, governments were quick to realise the potential of these far reaching messages. Propaganda was popular but so too were public service announcements including fire safety, hygiene, money saving, alcohol abuse and road safety—this combination of subject and design has left behind an invaluable archive of its time.”

I’ve posted on matchbooks, matchibako, and vintage matchbox labels before (here and here). What I find particularly compelling about this medium is its inherent viral quality—small images that communicated to a very large number of people, while also delivering an appropriate, value-added aesthetic quality (a vivid example of how design both shapes, and is shaped by, culture). Designers and illustrators today would do well to learn from the distilled palette (tiny canvas, bold line art, flat colours) that reproduction processes of the day imposed on the graphic artists of yore.

Images shown above: Matchbox covers from the Czech Republic, East Germany, Poland, and Russia. See over a thousand others here.