Shop America: Mid-Century Storefront Design, 1938-1950

by Steven Heller, Jim Heimann (Editor)

Window shopping In postwar America, everything pointed to a bright, shiny future. Sheer optimism and opulence informed everything from automobile design to architecture, infusing design with larger-than-life planes and curves. Storefront design of the era is particularly indicative of this phenomenon, incarnated here in an extensive collection of hand-illustrated shop window designs from 1938 to 1950. These spectacular, often grandiose plans for grocery stores, shoe shops, beauty salons, bakeries, and more are reminders of a time when stores were sacred shrines for the congregation of American shoppers?impressive and even slightly intimidating, just like the future itself. Collected for this unique book, the designs viewed in retrospect reveal the mindset of a unique period in history. In addition to an extensive selection of drawings are historical black and white photographs of actual shops built in a similar style. Shop America offers a rare look at mid-century commercial America as it pictured itself. The editor: Jim Heimann is Executive Editor for TASCHEN America in Los Angeles and the author of numerous books on architecture, popular culture, and Hollywood history including TASCHEN's bestselling All-American Ads series. The author: Steven Heller, the art director of the New York Times Book Review and co-chair of the School of Visual Arts MFA Design program, is the author of over one hundred books on design, popular culture, and satiric art. In addition to writing for over a dozen TASCHEN titles, his recent books include Design Literacy Second Edition, Stylepedia, and The Education of a Graphic Designer.

Genres: Design, Art, Architecture, Nonfiction, Pop Culture, Psychology, Reference

241 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2007

About the author

Steven Heller writes a monthly column on graphic design books for The New York Times Book Review and is co-chair of MFA Design at the School of Visual Arts. He has written more than 100 books on graphic design, illustration and political art, including Paul Rand, Merz to Emigre and Beyond: Avant Garde Magazine Design of the Twentieth Century, Design Literacy: Understanding Graphic Design Second Edition, Handwritten: Expressive Lettering in the Digital Age, Graphic Design History, Citizen Designer, Seymour Chwast: The Left Handed Designer, The Push Pin Graphic: Twenty Five Years of Design and Illustration, Stylepedia: A Guide to Graphic Design Mannerisms, Quirks, and Conceits, The Anatomy of Design: Uncovering the Influences and Inspirations in Modern Graphic Design. He edits VOICE: The AIGA Online Journal of Graphic Design, and writes for Baseline, Design Observer, Eye, Grafik, I.D., Metropolis, Print, and Step. Steven is the recipient of the Art Directors Club Special Educators Award, the AIGA Medal for Lifetime Achievement, and the School of Visual Arts' Masters Series Award.

Reviews

[Jon Nakapalau · Rating 5 out of 5]

Our dreams set behind glass - a window into the zeitgeist of the times - excellent book on this little discussed topic. Life is often 'behind' glass in America; we are separated from objects we desire yet can see. It is this gap between seeing and having which has become so problematic when dealing with access to resources based on class. Perhaps a better way to look at this is that storefronts are 'the museums of collective desire' - or our projected image set in 'stage' of socially stratified consciousness.

[Jon Nakapalau · Rating 5 out of 5]

If they could transport you to a time and place of your liking...you would spend money not only on the product but the feelings that were evocative of where you wanted to be. Eye opening look at the psychology of selling and how there is a visceral association with product demand based on artful presentation.

[Bryan · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is essentially a reprint of a catalog for suggested storefront designs for almost every type of business: bank, liquor store, restaurant, gift shop, jewelry store, tailor, flower shop, bakery, furniture, etc. Any type of store that could be in a downtown commercial district.

My dream is that some ambitious production designer gets a hold of this book and recreates these designs. They're beautiful. If only I could live in a city that looked like this.

[Ben · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fantastic, full color, generously sized reprints of 'style suggestion' pages with brief descriptions of the various storefronts and occasional blueprint samples included. The stylish, vintage illustrations are pretty rad. If you like that sort of thing.

[RW Press · Rating 5 out of 5]

A lovely designed book, showcasing the fantastic art of retail design from 1950s America. You can get lost browsing through this book, and I have often put this book out open on display to brighten up and inspire my day

[Michael Martin · Rating 2 out of 5]

One of the worst Taschen period art book/reprints I purchased. It consists primarily of a sales catalog detailing ridiculously overblown prospective Streamline store fronts put together to promote sales by glass companies. The text repeats itself constantly, and to be honest, I found the illustrations unappealing and poorly done at times. The intro to the book is quite good, but it's only about twenty pages long. Steven Heller should be embarrassed by this weak entry in his canon of edited art books.

[Online Eccentric Librarian · Rating 3 out of 5]

More reviews (and no fluff) on the blog http://surrealtalvi.wordpress.com/

I love midcentury design and had high expectations for this book. It is a large book and the images well displayed. But after the 10th or so page, it becomes apparent that it is nearly one hundred pages of variations on the same picture - the one on the cover. This uniformity in presentation should have made the book feel well researched; however, it's just visual candy and no substance. Just a large picture, some random info about materials to make that store front, and that's about it. Nothing about the architects, designers, clients, purpose, etc. Even the drawings look to have been done by the same person - and not necessarily a very creative one. I kept reading through the text in the beginning wondering if it was a compilation of ideas by a modern design student as part of a master's design thesis on mid century store front design. I think, but I am still not sure, that these are authentic designs from the period and not modern recreations. It feels like a modern day artist took old drawings and images and then distilled them so that you see the same 'what a storefront for xx would look like". So many don't even seem remotely practical.

Really, it feels like an idealized modern presentation of the same random storefronts, redressed. There's no context for the building in which the storefronts would be placed - the only parameter changing is the product to be sold. The book reads like this, "Here's a storefront idea for a florist." Here's a storefront for a idea for a shoe seller. Here's a storefront idea for a jeweler." It gets old fast.

I think the authors may have forgotten the reason to have a book like this - nostalgia and to get a feel for the time. That is lost in the book - there's just so little context other than a brief opening essay. I got bored seeing the same window redressed 100 times - perhaps I just wanted actual examples of implementation or use - even if only drawings as well.

[Angie Kennedy · Rating 3 out of 5]

MCM fonts to die for and enough Carrara structural glass to choke a camel. They don't design storefronts like this any longer and it's a real shame.

[Gina · Rating 5 out of 5]

Makes me wish I was in post WWII and could go shopping downtown!