Striking Images: Vintage Matchbook Cover Art

From the 1920s to the 1950s, a small but useful advertising gimmick spread like wildfire into the purses, pockets, and kitchen drawers of millions of Americans. The give-away matchbook was one of the most pervasive means ever found of putting promotional images into the hands of the public. Small and disposable, matchbooks were not only a highly successful marketing tool for a wide variety of products, they were also the repositories for a wealth of anonymous design creativity. Fantasies of ocean travel, bathing beauties, regal leisure, and tropical locales adorned the covers, as did hand-lettered typography, stylized illustration, and eye-catching color. This red-hot celebration brings the ubiquitous matchbook's art to life in all its pulp panache and visual zing.