Modernist Magazines and Digital Humanities

While looking through the magazines, I couldn’t help but find myself drawn to Scribner Magazine’s advertisements. In the December 1916 issue, which was also the Christmas issue, I was drawn to all the advertisements, especially Tiffany & co, which is popular among many women. Tiffany & co had a list of all their precious jewelry and china right on the advertisement. Those are the two things that woman love; jewelry and how to make their house look beautiful. They used what woman love to magnetize readers to buy their stuff. The typography used in many of these advertisements is used to do just that; draw people into their ideas. In the advertisement about Pears soup, they start the top of the ad with “Good Morning, have you used pears soup”, which automatically makes the reader think, “hmm, No I haven’t used it, should I use it?” which brings their curiosity closer to the advertisement. This advertisement continues to say “What pears cannot achieve in this direction cannot be done”, which is a type of commercializing that makes the reader think, “perhaps this is the best out on the market right now”, and we always want the best.

Scrolling down the pages of this same issue, I realize that in the advertisements they use bold lettering to bring out the main purpose of their advertisements. Bold lettering is eye catching and is used in many of the magazines. On page 28, I found something a bit strange and probably because it isn’t done today. This magazine had an advertisement about selling a country home, however, if you subscribed to the magazine, was how you got the number to the house; very devious. I found that to be strange because numbers today are very easy to find and obtain access to. A major commercial typography that was used, which is still used today is how they made the word “FREE” in capitals. When people see the word free, they automatically begin to think “oh where and how can I get it?”. This whole magazine had advertisements that used a lot of commercial typography. Writers and advertisers know what words to use to get the reader thinking.