“Tea Peps You Up!”

[Life, July 24, 1939. Click for a larger view.]

I like the clutter of this advertisement. But it isn’t clutter, really; it’s just more and more stuff to delight the reader. I like imagining the woman’s words aloud: she sounds like she’s on a jag. I like suspecting that the man is picnicking on liverwurst. (It sure looks like liverwurst.) I like the little Bayeux Tapestry at the bottom of the page. I especially like the treatment of the word TEA, a treatment usually reserved for ICE itself.

And speaking of ice, here’s Mr. Cube, larger, cleaner, colder:



Words often attributed to William Gladstone: “If you are cold, tea will warm you. If you are heated, it will cool you. If you are depressed, it will cheer you. If you are excited, it will calm you.” If you try to track down a source for these sentences, you will be disappointed. Here, have some tea.

Related reading
All OCA tea posts (Pinboard)

[I used the free Mac app Paparazzi! to grab the large ad. I used the Mac Preview alpha tool to clean up Mr. Cube.]