Printing and Publishing
Space for Advertisement. Coshocton, OH: Coshocton Specialty Co., [ca. 1910].
Bend the end of the divided-back postcard, as instructed, and the two figures in the boat will kiss. Employing the moiré technique, movement is created on the card. This printing company, using the A. S. Spiegel patent, will put an advertiser’s logo and/or name on the front. Still used today, the moiré technique is fun and mysterious to the consumer who, hopefully, will keep the company’s name on hand for further reference.
Paramount Theatre, Harold Lloyd. Bring the Family: A picture for kids from 6 to 60. New York: Economy Novelty & Printing Co., 1932.
This ad for Harold Lloyd’s new film, Movie Crazy, also serves as a sample of movable trade cards printed by Economy Novelty. The wheel turns Lloyd’s arm, which appears to be erasing the name of the movie. The reverse urges you to “Turn the disc on other side and imagine all your patrons doing likewise” and lists the costs of printing this kind of card, e.g., 25,000 at $10 per 1000. This is one of the more unusual and versatile mechanical promotional devices and is quite interactive. I have not seen it offered in other printer’s catalogs.
The Pop-Up Book Club. Danbury, CT: Grolier Enterprises, [ca. 1968].
This announcement for a new line of children’s books delivers a premium in the form of a BLAD (book layout and design), recreating a single spread from a new pop-up book, in this case, The Animal Alphabet (1967). The brochure, housed in an illustrated “must open” envelope, offers a discount for two editions in a new subscription series of pop-up books when sending in the enclosed token. Although unstated, the books shown are from the Random House series that inaugurated what the Movable Book Society calls the Second Golden Age of Pop-up Books. The text boasts, “This is reading adventure even television can’t beat!” (Grolier Enterprises is not affiliated with the Grolier Club.)
Robert Sabuda and Matthew Reinhart. Encyclopedia Prehistorica: Dinosaurs. Somerville, MA: Candlewick Press, 2005.
BLADs (book layout and design) are made to promote the sale of pop-up books to publishers and stores. It is a single spread, including the pop-ups and artwork, as it will appear in the final copy. Sabuda and Reinhart were a dynamic duo of paper engineering, producing several movable books printed in the hundreds of thousands. They continue to work individually today. Sabuda was the first to use photo corners to hold gatefolds (i.e., flaps with pop-ups or text underneath) to the page in his Wizard of Oz (Little Simon, Simon & Schuster, 2000).
I like to think that when I challenged Sabuda in 1993 to expand the text in pop-up books, and he said it couldn’t be done, he then came up with the solution shown here, flaps held down with photo corners.