Too Busy Illustrators

Beginning in the 1970s, TV Guide heavily featured illustrated covers by various artists. Whereas the prior decade was mostly photography, the new decade was dominated by established illustrators meeting short deadlines. Two of the most frequently used were Bernie Fuchs and Richard Amsel. Each had a distinct style that was readily identifiable. Each used a minimalist approach, capturing the essence of the personality's face and character.

The top row features Fuchs, the bottom highlights Amsel from the mid-1970s.

The Curtain That Never Closes

The more commonly used term for an air door in North America is "air curtain." The concept may seem like a marvel of the modern age, where a vertical waterfall of air separates two distinct environments from one another with great precision. But this technology dates back to 1904. Theophilus Van Kannel received a U.S. patent for "Means for Excluding Drafts from Open Doorways," which described an air curtain. However, the first air curtain installation in the United States was not installed until twelve years after the patent was issued. Erling Berner brought advanced European air curtain technology to the United States in 1956 and formed Berner Industries, which later became Berner International.

Air curtains are commonly used where doors are required to stay open for operational purposes, such as at loading docks and vehicle entrances. Cold drafts can be avoided by mixing in warm air heated by the air door. They offer energy savings and increased personal comfort by maintaining interior temperatures and helping keep flying insects out by creating forceful turbulence. Modern air curtains are designed to perform their barrier function without hampering passage or creating obstructions that can lead to accidents.

Airflow through a door depends on wind forces, temperature and pressure differences. Air curtains and doors work best when the pressure differential between the inside and outside of the building is as close to neutral as possible. Negative pressures, extreme temperature differences, elevators nearby, or extreme humidity can reduce the effectiveness of air curtains.

Above is a 1960 advertisement from the American Air Curtain Corporation.

Stanley Steamer & The Airbrush

Though Abner Peeler invented the first airbrush device, which he called the "paint distributor," it was Francis Edgar Stanley who patented the first airbrush pistol in 1882. Stanley, a photographer and inventor from Massachusetts, along with his twin brother Freelan Oscar Stanley, built the famous Stanley Steamer automobile. Stanley designed the airbrush device to assist with retouching photographs and named it the “Stanley Air Brush.” It revolutionized photo retouching. The tool used hand-pumped bellows to push air through a small nozzle, producing a fine, controlled spray of color.

The airbrush quickly found its way into the automotive industry with its greater precision and speed for painting cars, motorcycles, and other vehicles. Charles Burdick patented an airbrush device in 1893, more similar in design to what is most familiar today. During the 1930s and 1940s, airbrush pioneers included George “The Petty Girl” Petty, who used airbrushing to create highly realistic illustrated pin-up girls that were adopted as nose art on some WW2 aircraft. Alberto Vargas made famous his scantily-clad “Vargas Girl” illustrations, considered by many at the time to be an obscenity.

Hollywood makeup artists adopted the airbrush, offering a revolutionary way to smoothly apply color. By the 1960s, the hippy generation used airbrushing for dreamy psychedelic artwork on album covers, surfboards, panel vans, and, of course, the Volkswagen Transporter. During the 1980s and 1990s, airbrush shops became a cultural phenomenon, offering customized designs on apparel and more. Other artists could often be found at county and state fairs. The airbrush shops faded by the new millennium as digital printing and mass production became more commercially viable.

Airbrushing retains its versatility in various art forms, including illustration, portraiture, professional graffiti-styled art, makeup, fashion, murals, cake decorating, and vehicles. 

Foiled Again

The emergence of tin as a viable metal dates back to about 3500 B.C. with the discovery of bronze, an alloy of tin and copper. Skipping ahead about a “bazillion” years, pure tin became more widespread, leading to the eventual invention of tin foil. Hammering tin into thin sheets started in the late 18th century. By the mid-19th century, tin foil was commercially produced and used as a wrapping material. One major concern for foods wrapped in tin foil was the 'tin taste" that was sometimes present. The early uses of tin foil were not limited to food preservation. Due to its reflective properties, it was also utilized in various scientific experiments and early photography.

A shift from tin to aluminum started due to aluminum's non-corrosive properties, lower cost, and better performance. The breakthrough moment was in 1910 when the first aluminium foil rolling plant, Dr. Lauber, Neher & Cie, was opened in Emmishofen, Switzerland. In 1911, Bern-based Tobler began wrapping its chocolate bars in aluminium foil, including the unique triangular chocolate bar, Toblerone. The first use of foil in the United States was in 1913 for wrapping Life Savers, candy bars, and gum.

Reynolds Metals Company—acquired by Alcoa in 2000—has a long history in the aluminum industry, dating back to Richard S. Reynolds, who founded the U.S. Foil Company in 1919 in Louisville, Kentucky. Initially, the company produced tin foil for cigarette packaging, but it switched to aluminum foil in the 1920s when the price of aluminum dropped. In 1926, Reynolds began using aluminum foil as a packaging material for the first time. The company expanded into various aluminum products, including aluminum siding, which it pioneered in 1945.

Note: Aluminum Foil is shiny on one side when two sheets of aluminum foil are passed through the rollers during the final rolling process. The side in contact with the highly polished steel rollers results in a shiny surface, while the other side produces a matte finish. Despite the "old wives tales," it makes no difference whether you wrap or cover food while baking with the shiny side up. Today, approximately three-quarters of aluminum foil is used for packaging of foods, cosmetics, and chemical products, and the remaining quarter is used for industrial applications such as thermal insulation and electrical cables.

The above advertisement is from the early 1950s

A Barber Pole At Home

In 1919 Indianapolis, MIT Professor Frank Shields set out to create a less irritating shave. The result was the invention of Barbasol, a shaving cream that was ready to apply, no working into a lather needed. It became a very popular shaving cream after its introduction. Barbasol was first manufactured under the Napco Corporation name, a company Frank Shields started before inventing Barbasol. After the shaving cream sales increased, they outgrew Napco, and The Barbasol Company was created in 1920.

Some provocative advertisements and noted celebrities endorsed Barbasol during the 1920s and 1930s. For the 1938 Indianapolis 500, Barbasol sponsored a car painted to look like a tube of shaving cream. It completed only 166 laps, but the Barbasol car finished tenth the following year. By the mid-1950s, design engineer Robert P. Kaplan of Rochester, NY, invented and patented the first aerosol shaving cream can, and the Barbasol Company changed the formula from a thick cream in a tube to a soft, fluffy foam. The longevity of the barberpole-designed aerosol cans continues to be an unmistakable icon for razor shaving.

Pfizer bought The Barbasol Company in 1962. They developed a wide variety of Barbasol products and options to complement the original formula. Interestingly, the original cream in the tube was still manufactured until 2019. The "Barbasol 1919" Classic Shaving Cream was for the brand's 100th anniversary. Barbasol has been owned by Perio, Inc. of Dublin, Ohio since 2001.

Douglas Fairbanks Jr. in a 1930 Barbasol advertisement.