Kitchen Kitsch: Vintage Food Graphics

by Jim Heimann (Editor)

What began as a simple idea--giving away free brouchures with illustrations and recipes to advertise food and food brands--became so popular by the mid-20th century that recipe brochures, replete with colorful images of ornate dishes, were fixtures in every housewife's kitchen across America. This book brings together the best--and most unbelievably kitschy--images from a broad selection of such brochures.

Genres: Art, Design

192 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2002

Reviews

[7jane · Rating 4 out of 5]

These pages feature American foods ads and food information/menu booklets, mostly circa 1950s. Very, VERY colorful - sometimes you do feel glad that this is part of the past, but one does remain fascinated at how things could be, and what was there, back then. So for those interested, this is worth it :)

[Em · Rating 2 out of 5]

While this small paperback book offers great images, it offers no context for the images, such as the year, the product or company it promoted, how it was distributed, its target audience, etc.

If you're doing a deep dive into advertising from previous decades, this is entertaining, but without context, it's not educational. It's not even divided into categories, such as cleaning, cooking, beauty, etc.

It's small and easy to flip through. It does feature an introduction page that's published in four languages. What little context the book has is in the one-page introduction with tiny font.

This book had the potential to be a much better book. Advertising artists might find it to be helpful.