(EXPANDED FROM 1/15/2021)
Art Fitzpatrick and Van Kaufman’s artwork in Pontiac’s advertising played an important role in the brand’s popularity during the 1960s. Others have done a thorough job of showcasing the team’s most iconic ads (e.g., Niedermeyer, 2015; Stroll, 2015). Thus, rather than duplicating efforts, I would like to offer a caveat about the strengths and weaknesses of illustrations versus photography.
There’s no question that Fitzpatrick and Van Kaufman came up with some remarkable illustrations. I made a fake ad from one of my all-time favorites (go here). But even the more subdued image shown below of a 1967 Catalina convertible displays the illustration team’s skills in both showing a car in its most flattering light and telling an interesting story about the people involved.
That said, illustrations weren’t always the best way to present a car. As discussed in an essay about late-60s Chrysler marketing, good-quality photographs could often pick up more nuance than all but the best drawings. This was especially true when a car had subtle design elements. The 1967-72 Pontiac Firebird is a good case study of the trade-offs involved.
How to best showcase a 1967-68 Firebird?
Let’s start by comparing the banner’s Firebird illustration with the photographs below. To my eyes the illustration of a 1968 Firebird does a better job of showcasing the car’s front-end design than the two photos below of 1967 convertibles. The key reason why is that the illustration can accentuate how reflected light plays off sheetmetal surfaces.
This is not just a function of showing greater contrast in the car’s paint color. Notice how the hood on the illustrated Firebird has a more dynamic range of reflected colors, such as blue and yellow.
In addition, the above illustration — much like the one below — can capture the reader’s attention through dramatic background colors. Then one may linger in order to figure out what the people are doing.
Also see ‘1953-70 Chevrolet Corvette ads gingerly showed changing gender roles’
Although female models were presumably placed in the photos for the benefit of the male gaze, they didn’t visually tell as much of a story as the multiple people in the illustrations.
Illustrations didn’t always get the proportions right
Our second set of images focus more on the Firebird’s side styling. Here the illustrations aren’t nearly as effective as photography in capturing the dynamic visual tension in the 1967-68 Firebird’s profile.
A big part of the problem is that illustrations have a harder time getting the proportions just right. With the big Pontiacs this wasn’t a problem because they were supposed to have an exaggerated lower, longer, wider look.
In contrast, one of the Firebird’s greatest strengths was the subtle interplay between the C-pillar’s arc, the coke-bottle fender shapes and the tires. You can’t capture this design’s exquisite balance when the proportions are distorted — even slightly.
Another advantage the photograph below has over the above illustrations is that it displays more contrast. This is mainly a function of the photo’s quality. For example, the photo benefits by being taken near sunset.
1969 images are a decidedly mixed bag
Illustrations for the 1969 models displayed similar strengths and weaknesses. Below you will find what may very well be the best-executed illustration of a Firebird. Fitzpatrick, who focused on drawing the cars, made the Firebird look better than it did in real life with gorgeous use of contrast and color.
Meanwhile, Kaufman, who drew the scenery around the car, grabbed the reader’s attention with a blazing sun setting over a beach. The featured couple is presumably about to load the surf board into the Firebird’s roomy trunk and quickly drive home so they can have wild sex. Meanwhile, the scrawny guy on the left ponders if his mom’s Rambler wagon was the best car to carry his surf board to the beach (our fake ad is inspired by this scenario).
Another 1969 illustration that was relatively effective was one that draws the eyes in with a dune buggy race. The dramatic angles and colors served to obscure the less-than-stellar image of the car.
Other 1969 illustrations were less successful. They took a mediocre reskinning of the Firebird and made it look even more so.
Part of the problem with the image below is that the background is relatively uninteresting. That draws attention to the car, which was one of Fitzpatrick’s weaker renderings. Compare that to the photo immediately afterwards, which arguably presented a sportier look.
As usual, the Pontiac brochure’s side-view illustrations were even more problematic.
The photographs used in 1969 Firebird marketing were not always an improvement over the illustrations (at least if the ones I found are any indication). Even so, the photo below arguably used contrast better than the above illustrations.
Some Firebird models simply lent themselves better to photography. I am hard-pressed to imagine how the Trans Am pictured below could have been presented as well with illustrations.
Second-generation Firebird shifts toward photos
The 1970-and-a-half redesign of the Firebird was marked by a greater emphasis on photography in its marketing. However, in the ad below Pontiac used an illustration — albeit in a half-hearted way. The image’s background lacks visual flare and the car itself looks surprisingly amateurish. For example, the wheelbase ahead of the cowl is absurdly long.
This is not to say that the photographs of the 1970 Firebird were always an improvement. As a case in point, the image below does not adequately capture the sensuous curves at the base of the C-pillar.
The photo below does a much better job of showing the Firebird’s subtle curves. By the same token, this photo proves that the 1970 Firebird didn’t need the visual exaggeration of the above-shown illustration to look good.
Pontiac began to experiment with photographs that used special effects. The photo below was also unusual by including two men and a woman. One guy was talking with the woman while the other one looked wistfully at the second Firebird. What was that all about?
For the 1971 model year Pontiac continued to shift to photography. The photo below hints at why — the design nuances of the second-generation Firebird were arguably better captured by the camera than with pen and ink.
That didn’t stop Pontiac from using at least a few illustrations. Below is an ad that has a sort-of interesting background, but the car’s rendering wasn’t so great.
Nineteen-seventy-one was the last year that the Pontiac brochure featured an illustration as the lead image for the Firebird. As usual, the background was eye catching — and this time the car’s rendering was reasonably accurate. Yet it didn’t have quite the crispness of a photograph.
Did shift to photos partly reflect a turn to ‘realism?’
Quality of execution obviously matters for both illustrations and photographs. For example, I suspect that the side-view illustrations shown in this post were not penned by Fitzpatrick because they lack the dynamism of illustrations attributed to him (go here for a portfolio of his work with Pontiac as well as other brands).
That said, I can also see why photographs came to dominate marketing materials during the 1970s. They may have been less flashy than the best Fitzpatrick and Kaufman illustrations, but they looked more accurate. That may have mattered more as the market shifted to smaller cars, whose styling didn’t lend itself as well to the almost inevitably distorted proportions of an illustration.
One might even argue that the societal convulsions of the 1970s contributed to a turning away from the-sky-is-the-limit aspirations of the 1960s to a certain hunkered-down realism.
Whatever the reasons, marketing for the 1967-72 Firebird shows the evolution of an automaker from illustrations to photographs. As gorgeous as Fitzgerald and Kaufman’s work could be, shifting toward realism strikes me as a good move when it came to the Firebird.
NOTES:
This is an expanded version of a story that was originally posted on Nov. 22, 2015 and updated on Jan. 15, 2021.
Share your reactions to this post with a comment below or a note to the editor.
RE:SOURCES
- Niedermeyer, Paul; 2015. “Legendary Automotive Artist Art Fitzpatrick Dies.” Curbside Classic. Posted Nov. 19.
- Strohl, Daniel; 2015. “Auto advertising artist Art Fitzpatrick dies at 96.” Hemmings. Posted Nov. 20.
ADVERTISING & BROCHURES:
- wildaboutcarsonline.com (Automotive History Preservation Society): Pontiac Catalina (1967); Pontiac Firebird (1968, 1969, 1970, 1971, 1972)
- oldcaradvertising.com: Pontiac Firebird (1967; 1968, 1969)
- oldcarbrochures.org: Pontiac Firebird (1968, 1969, 1970)
Check out the book Boulevard Photographic by Jim Williams.It describes this firm’s strategy to use “massaged” photography to subtly alter a car’s look in their advertisements. It also displays their creative approach to ad campaigns and messaging.
That sounds like a terrific book. I’ll add it to the wish list. Thank you for the reference.
Fascinating discussion of how auto illustration art moved toward photo-based ad copy. I agree with the many contributing factors you outline, and still especially enjoy the visions of extremely talented illustrators who took artistic license to exaggerate the cars in their most glamorous light and aspirational context.
As photography was more utilized, it seemed to me a double-edged sword. Many better images surely resulted, but perhaps an in effort for ‘expediency’, sometimes you’d see the strange mutation of a marginal photographic base ‘enhanced’ with broadly applied, obvious, and hastily hand-retouched ‘areas’ causing a disturbing incongruity.
Fortunately, as photography and digital editing became more sophisticated, I feel it improved methods and results. It also provided the opportunity (for better or probably worse) for more members of the product team to be invested in the process- as design, advertising, marketing, planning etc. could continuously study and weigh in on views, angle, color, detail and composition from a nearly infinite variety of iterations vs. the linear development of an artist’s individual work. While this seems to dilute the individual artist’s influence, I believe it’s circled back similarly to the level of the illustration days, just with different methods.
The digitally developed ad images and CGI video models we see in motion are still ultimately created and envisioned by the artist’s eye, and presented in their idealized light.
The other thing at play was a shift in marketing to include a more diversity in potential customers. The aspirational country club good life that worked so well from 1959 through around 1967 starts seeming somewhat one dimensional even claustrophobic by 1971. The AF/VK illustrations were wonderful but their effectiveness had run its course.
The Pontiac illustrations were a step-up from photography alone, making the Pontiacs a more exotic / erotic choice. It is interesting to remember that the G.M. stockholder publications featured illustrations over photographs.