Squirt - Good Staff Artists

I don't know if Squirt used staff artists or... actually, I'm pretty sure they just hired an advertising company who used THEIR own staff artists for this ad. Doesn't matter. There is brilliant work in here.
1954 was still the middle of the golden age of advertising mascots. Also, it was the golden age of advertising, in this irrelevant nobody's opinion. You know... post-war optimism and a healthy economy make for some upbeat, irrationally happy ads.

This ad features two very different kinds of mascot art: abstract minimalism and disney-style. The one at the top, with the inverted black/white colors is a beautiful example of the abstract drawing style from the 50's. He's got no hands or feet and his head is a teardrop. If you click on the close-up of him below, you can see that the line around his head is kind of chalky. I can't explain why that's cool, but it is.

The other mascot, down below, is squirt boy. It shouldn't be impressive, but he was actually drawn by someone who knows how to draw cartoon characters! Take a walk down the cereal aisle of your grocery store and you'll see monstrous examples of badly-drawn over-rendered characters. Too many lines, wonky posing, clueless line tapering, and lumpy, bulbous designs are par for the course. Squirt boy looks good! Of course, this isn't too surprising, since advertising artists were, as a rule, trained in illustration back then. Now, they're mostly technicians and it shows.

At the bottom is a great black and white painting of a happy fisherman enjoying some squirt. Ignoring all common sense that sugar water is terrible for quenching thirst (a fact that soda companies still choose to ignore to this day), I cna only guess that the man is included as a serving suggestion for the type of face you might choose to make while you're enjoying your own glass of Squirt. Also, there's a great, cheesy spot color added, just for some zazz.