Mid-Century Modern - Graphic Design

Graphic Design

Printed ephemera documenting the mid-century transformations in urban development, architecture and design include Linen Type postcards from the 1930s to the early 1950s. They consisted primarily of national view-cards of North American cities, towns, buildings, monuments, civil and military infrastructures. Mid-century Linen Type postcards came about through innovations pioneered through the use of offset lithography. The cards were produced on paper with a high rag content which gave the postcard a fabric type look and feel. At the time this was a less expensive process. Along with advances in printing technique, Linen Type cards allowed for very vibrant ink colors. The encyclopaedic geographic iconography of mid-century Linen Type images suggests popular middle-class attitudes about nature, wilderness, technology, mobility and the city during the Mid-20th Century.

Curt Teich in Chicago was the most prominent and largest printer and publisher of Linen Type postcards pioneering lithography with his "Art Colortone" process. Other large publishers include Stanley Piltz in San Francisco, who established the "Pictorial Wonderland Art Tone Series", Western Publishing and Novelty Company in Los Angeles and the Tichnor Brothers in Boston. The printing of mid-century Linen Type postcards began to give way in the late 1950s to Kodachrome and Ektachrome type glossy color prints.