A Guild First!

hansmoust

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Hello folks,

Some of you may know that I've been a guitar catalog collector for many years and I still enjoy adding ‘new’ stuff to my collection. Recently I acquired a Guild advertisement that I had not seen before in that particular format.

RiteSlantStrings_Ad.jpg


It may not jump out to you right away, but for some reason I noticed the 'smiley' in the high-e tuner button of the headstock drawing and it made me wonder about how far back the 'smiley' goes. So I did a quick Google search and this is (among other things) what I found:

There are few symbols which so fully represent the American spirit of friendship, happiness and peace as the smiley face. Harvey Ball, co-owner of an advertising and public relations firm in Worcester, Massachusetts designed the Smiley Face in 1964 to help ease the acrimonious aftermath following the merger of two insurance companies.

Then I realized that this Guild advertisement pre-dates the ‘official’ born-on date of the ‘smiley’ by at least a few years! I don’t have an exact date for this ad since it is not dated, but from the info that is on the sheet I was able to date it to the 1960-1961 period.

I can see it is not exactly the ‘smiley’ as we know it today and I guess it is close to what a kid could have drawn at some point, but the way I see it, this little drawing clearly expresses the same emotion of ‘happiness, joy and optimism’ that Harvey Ball was trying to portray when he designed the ‘smiley face' in 1964.

I’m not saying Harvey Ball stole the idea! A lot of great simple ideas often are born at different places, but until somebody comes up with an earlier version of the ‘smiley’ I like to think that the designer who came up with this ad, was the first one to use that idea.

Sincerely,

Hans Moust
www.guitarsgalore.nl
 
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killdeer43

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Yet another interesting piece of Americana. The smiley was the first thing I noticed when I saw the image.
I have friends who own/operate a small design service and they're always looking for something with a new "hook" in the advertising market.

Thanks, :joyous:
Joe
 

mavuser

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Hans, quite fascinating as always. thanks for sharing! Amazing there is still Guild stuff you are just discovering now.
 

bluesypicky

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Very cool.... love the 60's ads, just watched a show recently on the Smithsonian channel (one of my favorite channels) called "The real mad men of advertising" about the marketing creativity explosion of the 60's.
I think this is really when the marketers' strategy defined itself around the goal of making people laugh (or smile) to get them to take a second look at the product.

Thanks for that Hans! :)
 

gilded

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Hans,

I can't read the copy (wording) of the ad, but does the smiley face 'relate back' to words in the copy (example: "Yes, rite-slant strings will put a smile on your face!"), or is the tuner-head smile just hanging out there all by itself?
 

txbumper57

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That is really cool Hans. I spent a minute just looking over the ad before I read your write up on it and like Joe the first thing that drew my attention was the Smiley Face High E Tuner! Nice piece of History and Great write up! Now after seeing this ad for the Rite-Slant strings I am going to go look at all of my different string types and see if they all have this slant or not. LOL, If they do does this mean that Guild led the design to modern String types starting in the early 60's? Very Interesting for sure. Thanks for the photo of the ad and that little bit of history this morning!

TX
 

hansmoust

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Hans,

I can't read the copy (wording) of the ad, but does the smiley face 'relate back' to words in the copy (example: "Yes, rite-slant strings will put a smile on your face!"), or is the tuner-head smile just hanging out there all by itself?

No, not that literally! The exact wording is 'Guild Rite-Slant Guitar Strings make every guitar sound better!' and the smiley face speaks for itself!

Why, are you considering taking the case?

Sincerely,

Hans Moust
www.guitarsgalore.nl
 
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chazmo

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Hans,

You know we love the smiley around here!!! Mr. Cozad adorned us with Guild smileys at LMG, and I love that the Guild smiley now dates back that far. Very, very cool!
 

wileypickett

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Anyone who grew up in vicinity of NYC between 1960 and 1970 will remember The WMCA "Good Guys," as they called their staff of deejays. The Good Guys logo was also a smiley face, also predating the Harvey Ball design. Here's a link to the iconic sweatshirt they made for promotion in 1962. There are pictures of the Rolling Stones sporting these taken during their first U.S. tour, which included a trip to the radio station.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:WMCA_good_guys_sweatshirt_1962.gif
 

hansmoust

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Well, I'm not from the NYC area, but I've seen that shirt before; probably while researching old photos. Again, not exactly the same 'smiley' as we know it today, but it portrays that same universal expression! Very cool!

Sincerely,

Hans Moust
www.guitarsgalore.nl
 

wileypickett

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I'm not surprised that you'd have seen the "Good Guys" image before Hans. I did a quick Google search and there are photos of a number of bands sporting the WMCA Good Guys sweatshirt: the Stones, Eric Burdon & the Animals, the Dave Clark 5, and probably many others. It was a popular NYC radio station, playing the hits. They were competing with WABC, who were THE New York City AM station in the '60s. I grew up in northern NJ, and spent many hours with that little plastic earpiece in my ear, listening to one station or the other on my little transistor radio.

Well, I'm not from the NYC area, but I've seen that shirt before; probably while researching old photos. Again, not exactly the same 'smiley' as we know it today, but it portrays that same universal expression! Very cool!

Sincerely,

Hans Moust
www.guitarsgalore.nl
 
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