Picture of Today 5/10/10

[spiceman1957]

Obviously, this ad was created by the folks at "Mad Men".
John

 

[circlew]

Those customers sure are awfully "done-up" to be visiting a washateria - ladies in high heels and pearls, men in coats and ties; even the little boy is dressed in finery. Never known anyone that got fancied up like that to go do laundry - then or now.

 

[neptunebob]

How are these drawings created? Especially the shine of the floor? Is it some kind of water color? It seems like you never see anything like this anymore that is not computer generated.

 

[tbolt25]

Whirlpool belted coin-op laundromats

I'd say there would be a lot of woo-wooing and grind-click-clunking in one of these Whirlpool belted coin-op laundromats!

 

[combo52]

WP POLYCLEAN CENTER

Notice the WP TL washers are all 24" models the 29" WP TL washer always made WP less completive for coin laundries because they took up too much floor space and you couldn't get as many money making machines in the same area as other brands. The dry cleaning machines use many of the same parts as the original WP built 33" combos, WP also made a super capacity washer out the 33" combo for commercial use called the WASH-A-LOT.

 

[bigfoot]

One other point. The drycleaners were the, very rare, Mk I's.
The bulk of production was the II's and III's which had oblong door glasses, not round.
Probably an artists concept of the Poly Clean Center before the first one opened

 

[tomturbomatic]

The reason for the look of the ad is that it is done by an illustrator, not a photographer. Illustration was essentially painting and drawing and gave the deep, rich colors that were far more dramatic than true-to-life photography, but as color photography became cheaper it began to be used instead of illustration. If you are a fan of old magazines, you can see many ads like this one as well as illustrations for fiction and articles. I remember the beauty of magazines around Christmas in the decade and a half after WWII, with gorgeous Christmas Trees that were the products of talented artists painted into ads for radios, televisions, furniture and other consumer products, even towels, linens and housewares. The color, perfection and detail could not be achieved in real life. These mostly unheralded illustrators brought a huge amount of beauty to the lives of people who read magazines; maybe not like they would see in an art museum, but beautiful pictures of clothing, homes and furnishings that caused them to go out and look at and maybe buy what they had seen so beautifully portrayed in the pages of a magazine that probably cost less than a dollar.

As you enjoy a POD, you might want to appreciate the art form it is.