Beer has come a long way since breweries first had the idea of developing can packaging nearly 100 years ago. In the early 1900s, breweries had a problem producing a can that would withstand the pasteurization process and allow the beer to still taste good when it reached the consumer. In order to withstand the heat and pressure of the process, the first beer cans were constructed of tin and steel and were much more thick and sturdy than the ones we see today. By 1935, the first commercially produced beer in a can hit the market.

Early Beer Can Styles and Designs

(images via: rustycans, umn)

American Can Co. began experimenting with canned beer in 1931, as it anticipated the end of Prohibition. Krueger’s Special Beer was the first commercially packaged beer in a can.  The very first canned beer was sold in Richmond, Virginia in 1935. Early on, manufacturers were mostly concerned with creating a beer can that could hold up to the heat and pressure of the pasteurization process without bursting or later leaking on the store shelves. Style and branding were considered, but were not a top priority in the beginning. Pabst was the first major brewer to offer beer in a can.

Rare, Unusual and Special Edition Beer Cans

(images via: umn, blogsmonroe, cantstopthebleeding, worth1000, baseballforum, ebeercans)

After methods of packaging beer into durable cans were developed, the real treat for consumers and collectors were the colorful designs on the cans.  Beer would still not taste great coming from a can for several decades.  Manufacturers began releasing special edition and novelty cans with lively images and color schemes to attract consumers and compensate for the canned beer taste.  Some of these early cans, if still in good condition, are now worth thousands of dollars to collectors.  This Cordell Brand can was produced in 1963 by the Hauglie Brewing Company and features the “Even The Cat Enjoys It!!!” slogan.  This slogan was only included on one run of the labeling and was removed after complaints from animal rights groups.  This is one of the most rare and valuable cans in existence and it is highly sought after by serious collectors.

Craft Brewery Beer Cans

(images via: blogaboutbeer)

Canned beer became popular in the 1960s, but consumers still had to put up with beer that tasted more like the can than it did beer.  Over the years, technology has improved and even craft beer manufacturers are now comfortable with packaging their products in cans. Cans are now specially coated with a water-based finish that prevents the beer from coming in contact with the aluminum. Packaging beer in cans is less expensive than in glass bottles and the cans are 100% recyclable, making them an attractive option, especially in today’s economic climate.

Vintage Beer Can Collections

(images via: bigchief, greenmon, umn, francisanderson)

Vintage beer can collections are generally comprised of three distinct types of packaging: flat top, cone top and pull tops. The earliest can designs were flat tops and consumers were on their own when it came to opening them.  Generally a triangle shaped can opener was used to puncture the tops of the cans and make an opening in this style of can. Soon conetop cans were introduced and the six pack was born in 1938. The packaging was thick and six packs of beer were deemed too heavy for housewives to pick up on weekly grocery shopping trips.   By 1960, the last conetop beer cans were produced and manufacturers tried using an aluminum top on steel cans to make them easier to open.  In 1962, the first pull-tab beer hit the market, in 1965 ring-top cans were introduced and in 1974 a short-lived push-button beer can was used on some brands.  Most canned beers now use the pull-tab packaging.

Modern Beer Can Designs

(images via: viZZZual, umn)

With the exception of promotional and limited edition can designs, most major breweries now package canned beer in very recognizable, iconic cans. The most popular beer brands are instantly recognizable by the simple label designs. Beer marketing and advertising relies on the recognition of the label, so modern packaging is generally all about branding.

These 15 retrofuturistic ads showcase one of advertising’s most time-tested traits: convincing the target market a better, brighter future can be theirs TODAY – once they purchase this must-have product. Is the world we live in really as “new & improved” as we were led to believe?

Waking Up to a New & Improved Day

(images via: Topatoco and Plan59)

Evoking the image of better days to come must have been an effective message for advertisers past. Even the word “new” is charged with extra meaning: however well your old widget performs, a new one MUST be even better! The parody ad above (top) plus the pair beneath take great delight in saluting retrofuturism’s undeniably appealing sense of style.

The Road Ahead

(images via: Staten Island Notebook and World of Carz)

Cars, more than any other product, have been flogged to the public using the whip of futurism. Don’t just keep up with the Joneses, leave ’em choking in your dust! Plymouth’s bold “Suddenly it’s 1960!” campaign on behalf of the trim, finned 1957 line is a case in point – though the ads (and the cars) didn’t age well. Even so, we can just bet Chrysler wishes it was 1960 now. Just below “Christine” we have the 1964 Chrysler Turbine Car, which though genuinely futuristic, was neither advertised nor sold.

Rocketing to Higher Sales

(images via: Museum of Childhood and Plan59)

Retro-style auto ads reached their zenith in the 1950s. The auto industry’s optimism was justified: new technology, bold styling and virtually no competition painted a picture as rosy as the hues in the above images. GM’s Oldsmobile led the way forward – and upward – with a hugely popular series of ads extolling the powerful Rocket V8 engine.

The Future is Fin-tastic!

(images via: Scratchskunk and Somchai)

Wonder why those Fabulous Fifties chromes-mobiles looked so spacey? They not only had to keep up with the exciting times at the birth of the Space Age, they also had to match some of the wildest extrapolations of the era’s artists.

Airs to a Rich Tradition

(images via: Pink Julep and Pied Piper Intl. Press)

Air travel was futuristic from the first and in many respects remains so, even though it’s been over a century since the first rickety aircraft took to the friendly skies. Until some type of Star Trek transporter is developed, air travel will remain the fastest way to get around on Earth. That, by default, makes it tomorrow’s way to travel today.

Kitschy Kitchen

(images via: Pointless Banter and Manolo for the Home)

Was 1953 really that long ago? It sure was – and now we know, engineers should stay in the lab and leave the advertising to the marketers. Into the darkness some light did shine, however, as illustrated by the 1948 ad for the Dishmaster. Looking more like a Hudson hood ornament than a kitchen faucet, the Dishmaster made dishwashing so much fun even the Man Of The House was happy to pitch in!

(image via: Plan59)

Even “Junior” lends a hand… though he’ll bail if you keep calling him that. Then again, the lad does look excited though that may have something to do with the cluster of coffee cups in the drying rack.

Toys of Tomorrow!

(images via: Ioffer and Dark Roasted Blend)

Toy ads of the past often sought to grab a child’s imagination, and what better way than to foresee the fantastic future they will one day grow into. The Bohn firetruck ad (above, left) dates from 1945.

Cuts to the Bohn

(images via: Plan59 and Veerle’s Blog)

Above are some other Bohn ad illustrations. What’s most incredible about these artworks is that most were created in the mid to late 1940s, thought by most people to be a somewhat drab period overshadowed by the horrors of World War II. Bohn decidely looked on the bright side by putting the recent past behind and focusing intently on a brilliantly colored, sleekly streamlined future.

Japan Banks on Credit

(images via: Iconocast)

Japan’s Sanwa Bank evoked a cashless future with a famous series of full-page magazine ads for the JCB credit card that ran in the early 1970s. Interestingly, Japan is well on its way to becoming a cash-free society today, though it’s cellphones that are taking the place of notes & coins. As for Sanwa Bank, they made it to the next millennium but just barely, merging with two other large Japanese banks in the year 2001.

SONY (Retro) Style

(image via: Woman’s Day)

This vintage 1960s SONY ad from Woman’s Day manages to look forward while keeping a firm grip on the swingin’ sixties. SONY’s products had a reputation of being cutting-edge, even before the Walkman, Watchman and Discman and the company obviously knew a winning theme when they saw one.

Futuristic Flattery with Photoshop

(images via: Worth 1000)

The mad photoshoppers over at Worth 1000 took on retro ads in one of their popular contests, and the results could easily fly as actual ads now that all things retro are in style. Note the SONY television ad, updated to feature one of the new VIAO portables.

Sale of the Millennium!

(images via: Forbidden Planet and eBay)

Looking ahead 55 years from 1945, truly anything seemed possible – even probable! The Seagram’s whiskey ad above shows just what a few shots of booze will do to one’s imagination while the British “Dan Dare” comic image just above it crystallizes the excitement and exoticism of Y2K, even as recently as the late 1970s.

This DOES Compute

(images via: Bite Dose and Royal Pingdom)

Computers had a futuristic aura from the first, so advertisers really did push the envelope that much in their ads. The selection above, ranging from the fifties through the eighties, gives a glimpse into the minds of computer marketers as they sought to make their product seem essential to a niche that, while small originally, showed the promise of great expansion.

This SPACE for Rent

(images via: Plan59)

Space, the final frontier… but how do advertisers advertise the future futuristically? The above images give some indication, for example Bell Aircraft (top left) equating their 1960 Agena rocket with the structure of the atom and just to the right, a 1958 ad from Vanadium Corporation of America showing how “alloys bring the future closer”. Below is a 1963 image used by Midland-Ross Corp. to imagine trucks of the future.

(image via: Plan59)

Closing out with a jet-powered boost, the above 1953 ad titled “PRECISION born of skill” injects excitement into Bower Roller Bearings – a tough call if ever there was!

Overall, it’s easy to see why retrofuturistic style was so effective then and so appealing today. Maybe it’s a myth to look back at the so-called Good Old Days… back then, society was looking ahead to where we are today!

Not too long ago, walking along a city sidewalk would yield plenty of unique experiences in guerrilla art. Tags left by taggers who climbed into precarious positions, impromptu murals on the sides of buildings, and bizarre urban art installations were all a part of city life that some people admired and others considered a scourge.

Advertisements were clearly delineated, different and separate from art. They were easily recognizable as advertisements and no one expected them to be anything else.

Today, the urban environment includes not only separate instances of art and advertisements, but advertisements that look suspiciously like art. Guerrilla advertisements that use the familiar rough-edged look of graffiti – and others that use actual graffiti – are found now in cities around the world.

So what’s the difference between guerrilla art and guerrilla advertisement? How can you differentiate when the lines between the two are blurred as they are?

You might think that the distinction between the two would be obvious. After all, the goal of advertising is to sell you something, while the goal of art is less easy to define. Guerrilla art states a political message, subverts a common belief, exists simply for the pleasure of the beholder, or any number of other reasons.

So telling the difference between art and advertisement should be easy. But what about advertisements that are truly beautiful? What about the street artists who are paid to use their art to advertise a product? Is that still advertising, or can it also be art? Street art that isn’t commissioned and for which the artist hasn’t received permission may very well be a masterpiece, but in the eyes of the law it is a criminal offense.

The line is blurred even further when you take into account the litany of corporate logos and slogans invading our space at every turn. They may be advertisements, but at what point do they become graffiti? They seem to fit some people’s definitions of visual litter: they are bright, they are ever-present, they are distracting and invasive.

Besides the sheer number of advertisements all around us, many companies have figured out that the corporate penalties for unlicensed guerrilla advertisements are rarely enforced. When they are enforced, the fines are usually so small that they cost much less than the permits would have. Because of this, unlicensed guerrilla ads have been on the rise in recent years.

So if guerrilla artists can get paid to put up graffiti, and if corporations can put up ads without paying, where does guerrilla art stop and guerrilla advertising begin?

Maybe the most confusing part of this debate is the street artists who have gained popularity, acceptance, and even fame for their urban art. Artists like Banksy and Neckface, once considered criminals, now enjoy successful careers as artists. Shephard Fairey, creator of Obey, and artist collective Faile have gained commercial success as designers and are now living the dream of making a living from their art. Yet they continue to post urban art, often without permits or permission. You might say that these artists are engaging in guerrilla advertising since their street art now promotes their commercial art.

Some groups are majorly unhappy about street space and urban art being co-opted by corporations who are almost never subjected to the same punishments as individual artists. The Anti-Advertising Agency, along with Graffiti Research Lab, recently carried out a brilliant campaign calling attention to the advertising infestation in NYC. The AAA and GRL want city dwellers to be aware that, while graffiti artists go to jail every day for tagging or stenciling, corporations get away with large-scale illegal guerrilla marketing stunts, as well as legal campaigns that are simply visually overwhelming.

Has the life been sucked out of urban art by too many advertisements? Have corporations been stealing from artists and using their trailblazing ideas and techniques to promote their own commercial interests?

Look closely. We think that the constant battle between advertisements and art has given birth to an entirely new urban environment. In today’s cities, corporations do their best to use whatever tricks they can to get our attention. Artists do their best to promote their own ideals, whether those be freedom of expression, the right to display their art, reclaiming the urban landscape, culture jamming, subvertising, or simply creating something beautiful and meaningful. When the two collide, a fascinating new breed of urban landscape results.

The urban environment now includes advertisements with cleverly worded additions from street artists alongside brilliant urban art. Ads created by respected street artists share space with the typically polished ads from professional advertisers. The overall picture is surreal, blending art with commerce and involving a significant overlap of the two.

The rules change daily in business and in art, and as such it is becoming increasingly difficult to consistently tell the difference between them. Many times, we find ourselves missing the commercial message on a beautiful ad or looking for the product placement in a piece of striking art. Will the already-faint lines between the two one day become completely transparent? Only time will tell.