Some morning, a while ago, I was walking my dog and minding my own business in the West Village. It was garbage day. When my dog stopped me in my tracks, because something urgently needed sniffing at, I noticed a neat pile of old magazines, with a string around it, present-style. And a gift it was; it turned out to be a pile of L’oeil magazines from 1959-1960, in great condition.
I couldn’t get over the beauty: the uncoated paper, the sophisticated covers, the full color lithos inside, the ads for Balmain (him again), Knoll, and the Daniel Cordier Gallery on the back covers, every font, every subject…flawless.

Flash forward to recently: I was once again getting lost in a serious book-vortex in my partner’s vast library of highly covetable and rare books on design, interiors and art—which, by the way, I spend way too much time doing, but how can one resist?— Anyway, I noticed that two books of his that I love, European Decoration and The Best In European Decoration (1963), both published by Reynal & Co., turned out to be collections of interiors featured in L’oeil.
Each project in the books gets its own type treatment (don’t you love it when designers felt free to be all non-commercial and weird in their approach?), and the European interiors range from super pop villas to medieval castles. Very much like World of Interiors is doing so nicely today.

The takeway of this story: if you’re a font dork and a 1960’s interiors nerd, and you can get your hands on either the magazine or the books, buy them.

I was doing some research on monochromatic still life images (don’t ask) and came across this GT&E campaign from better looking times, AKA the early 60’s. The copy almost whispers, and the photography doesn’t exactly yell at you either. In other words, it’s a campaign designed for adults. What a novel concept that would be today.

I threw in an ad for Bell and one for AT&T from the same period, both equally smart.

This may actually be my favorite: even though it’s a cat-lady. Or maybe because it is a cat-lady.