At Grocers' Now!

The 1950's were a time of growth in the US & Canada as
grocery stores become supermarkets. To fill up those
supermarket shelves, companies like Del Monte had to
constantly expand their product line. With this
expansion there came a need to expand the marketing of
these products. So the advertising agencies would
create campaigns like the "Del Monte Round Up". This
Round Up would occur in both print ads and in large
in-store promotional banners and signs.

This campaign employed an illustration style that has
it's roots in children's storybooks and Disney
animated films. It was not just simple cartoon line
art, but instead fully painted art with bold colors
and shaded dimensional forms. To accentuate it even
further the products were rendered in a photorealistic
style. This makes for a piece of illustration that
just stampedes off the page.

As a lover of food advertising art, I find this type
of work to the be the beginning of the golden age of
advertising that lasted into the early 1970's. But
these guys started in it all the 1950's with a body of
work that continues to inspire and amaze.