today. Initially, billboards were sold by solicitors or agents often connected
to a printing firm. In the 1920 s advertising agencies assumed responsibility.
From a handful of independent suppliers grew the Outdoor Advertising
Association, which soon became the regulatory group employing inspectors
to check on the construction and distribution of panels and the appearance
of posters. By 1917 ,$350,000,000was spent on outdoor advertising. By the
mid- 1920 s, twice that amount. But according to critics, the quality of the
American twenty-four-sheet poster was generally inferior to the smaller yet
more innovative English, French, and German posters.
During the 1920 s and 1930 s, the golden years of American outdoor
advertising, artistry was of secondary importance. Both the artist and
designer in American advertising (where copywriters were the kings) were
less important than in Europe (where the image was dominant). Stark
communication, the need to steal viewers’s attention for only a split second,
dictated the look of billboards. The most successful combined art and
message and conformed to historian Hamilton King’s dictum that a poster
should “seize a moment, exploit a situation with one daring sweep [of line
and color]... all that can be told of a tale in the passing of an instant. It is
dramatic and imaginative, yet it is saliently sincere.”
Reeling from the Great Depression, American industry began its
uphill drive to repair the damage during the 1930 s. The twenty-four-sheet
billboard became a symbol of this recovery. Aesthetics improved as some
designers became more involved with the creative process. Advertisers
accepted the seductive powers of modernistic imagery to sell their wares.
And rather than a blight, billboards heralded the new industrial age,
fostered a new consumerism, and symbolized a brighter future.
tuis.
(Tuis.)
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