Client files, administrative files, artwork, and collected food labels from graphic and industrial designer Francis Mair. Mair specialized in beverage labels and packaging during his many years with Landor Associates in San Francisco. Late in his career, he directed Landor's Museum of Packaging History. His prolific freelance career included designs for furniture, decorative arts, letterhead, and corporate images. His personal artwork included alphabets, typefaces, and sketchbooks. Much of his personal artwork is humorous or erotic.
Scope and Contents:
The collection consists largely of client files and artwork from Mair's years with Landor Associates and his freelance design work. Mair's specialty was the design of beverage containers, labels, and packaging, and there is a significant body of material produced for West Coast and national breweries and wineries. Mair also managed Landor's Museum of Packaging Antiquities, and there are several boxes of the Museum's administrative files. Of particular interest is Mair's large collection of historical and contemporary wine, liquor, and fruit crate labels (both foreign and domestic). The labels seem to have served as an inspiration and a record of his work, as well as documentation of historical packaging for the Museum. Mair's freelance clients were diverse, though most of them were small businesses and organizations in the San Francisco Bay Area. In addition to food and beverage labels, these commissions included posters, promotional materials, letterhead and personal announcements, invitations, and cards. Lastly, the collection includes personal artwork and records of entrepreneurial projects (such as the Flexigon, a flexible geometric toy).
Arrangement:
Collection is arranged into eight series.
Series 1, Professional Materials, 1956-1991, undated
Series 2, Landor Associates Files, 1946-1993, undated
Series 3, Landor Museum of Packaging Antiquities, 1960-1989, undated
Series 4, Freelance Client Files, 1946-1989, undated
Series 5, United States Naval Training School, Radio Chicago, 1943-1945, undated
Sereis 6, Personal Artwork and Designs, 1935-1994, undated
Series 7, Reference Files, 1950-1985, undated
Series 8, Labels, undated
Biographical / Historical:
Francis Marion Mair was born in Streator, Illinois to Alexander Morrison Mair and Jessie C. Williams on May 5, 1916. He began his career as an artist and designer at the University of Illinois School of Design in Chicago receiving a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in Painting in 1938. That year he joined the United States Navy and where he designed visual aids for the Naval Training School in Chicago, Illinois. Even at this early stage in his career, acute design sense and humor are evident in his work. In 1949, he joined Landor Associates in San Francisco, California where he worked for forty years, retiring in 1989. At Landor, he specialized in designing packaging and labeling for beverages. He also was the director of Landor's Museum of Packaging History which shared quarters with Landor Associates on the Ferryboat Klamath. Throughout his career, Mair took on diverse freelance projects. One of his most successful was the Suva line of rattan furniture and decorative objects for Decorative Imports. Mair published articles in Advertising Age, Industrial Design, Advertising Techniques, and Wines and Vines. Mair died on April 29, 1991 in Contra Costa County, California.
Related Archival Materials:
Materials at the Archives Center, National Museum of American History
Industry on Parade (NMAH.AC.0507)
Reel #167, Sitting Bull's Last Stand, 1953. Peter Meindl, a German woodcarver, making cigar store wooden Indians, New Hampshire.
Walter Landor and Associates (AC0500)
NW Ayer Advertising Agenecy Records (AC0059)
Hills Bros. Coffee Company Records (AC395)
Emmett McBain Afro American Adertising Poster Collection (AC0192)
Warshaw Collection of Business Americana (AC0060)
Marilyn E. Jacklear Memorial Collection of Tobacco Advertisements (AC1224)
Marlboro Oral History and Documentation Project (AC0198)
Related Materials:
A glass final production version of a French's mustard jar and three hand-carved, solid-wood prototypes for this jar are in the Museum's Division of Work and Industry. These were found in Mair's home studio.
Provenance:
Collection donated by LaVeda Mair, April 23, 1996.
Restrictions:
Collection is open for research.
Rights:
Copyright for a portion of the collection held by the Smithsonian Institution. Collection items available for reproduction, but the Archives Center makes no guarantees concerning copyright restrictions. Reproduction permission from Archives Center: fees for commercial use.
Unrestricted research use on site by appointment. Photographs must be handled with cotton gloves unless protected by sleeves.
Collection Rights:
Collection items available for reproduction, but the Archives Center makes no guarantees concerning copyright restrictions. Other intellectual property rights may apply. Archives Center cost-recovery and use fees may apply when requesting reproductions.
Illustration: Native Americans with Uncle Sam, inspecting shipment of Ivory Soap.
Local Numbers:
Ivorydata4 79
0207910069 (Scan No.)
Restrictions:
Unrestricted research use on site by appointment. Reproduction restrictions due to copyright.
Collection Rights:
Collection items available for reproduction, but the Archives Center makes no guarantees concerning copyright restrictions. Other intellectual property rights may apply. Archives Center cost-recovery and use fees may apply when requesting reproductions.
Large reproduction of photo of toddler boy, with lengthy copy under title caption. Text attempts to generate masculine appeal for Ivory soap in a humorous way.
Published Apr. 1932. Note: a color version of this ad appeared in the Saturday Evening Post for April 30, 1932. See http://scriptorium.lib.duke.edu/adaccess/BH/BH08/BH0890-72dpi.jpeg
Local Numbers:
Ivorydata4 1389
0307910194 (Scan No.)
Restrictions:
Unrestricted research use on site by appointment. Reproduction restrictions due to copyright.
Collection Rights:
Collection items available for reproduction, but the Archives Center makes no guarantees concerning copyright restrictions. Other intellectual property rights may apply. Archives Center cost-recovery and use fees may apply when requesting reproductions.
The collection documents "Selling the Dream" was an hour long television documentary that aired in early 1991 as part of the public television series, Smithsonian World.
Scope and Contents:
Series 1, boxes 1-15: 16 mm color film shot for the program, arranged in two subseries. Subseries A, boxes 1-10, consists of primary source materials including film footage of a meeting of scholars, historians, archivists, Weiden & Kennedy advertising agency personnel, and Nike executives at the Smithsonian's Center for Advertising History for the Nike Advertising Oral History and Documentation Project; interviews with scholars, historians, industry representatives (including transcripts for some interviews); and documentation of a Mitsubishi GT3000 ad from pitch to production, including meetings between Grey advertising agency personnel and Mitsubishi account representatives, a live commerical shoot and a production session with a commercial narrator. Subseries B, boxes 11-15, consists of secondary materials created during production, including pre-production sync pulls, trims, and lifts as compiled and edited by producer Steven York and Associates. Series 2, box 16, contains documentary materials relating to the show's production and broadcast, including correspondence, press releases, and publicity. Transcripts for the interviews are located here.
Arrangement:
The collection is divided into two series.
Series 1: Film
Series 2: Documentary Material
Biographical / Historical:
"Selling the Dream" was an hour-long television documentary that aired in early 1991 as part of the public television series "Smithsonian World." The program traces the evolution of advertising from the late 19th century through the creative revolution of the 1960s to explore how advertising both influences and reflects American culture. In addition to historical imagery, the program follows a contemporary Mitsubishi GT3000 automobile advertising campaign from conception to production. The program features interviews with the men and women who created the advertising as well as with scholars, historians, industry advocates and government officials who comment on the role and history of advertising in a comsumer culture. "Selling the Dream" was underwritten by Southwestern Bell and co-produced by WETA and the Smithsonian Institution. The Center for Advertising History served as a resource and consultant to the producers.
Provenance:
Collection donated by Smithsonian World through executive producer Sandra Bradley, in August 1991.
Restrictions:
Collection is open for research.
Rights:
There are reproduction restrictions on material in this collection. See repository details.
Topic:
Stereotypes (Social psychology) in advertising Search this
