The style that Push Pin Studios became known for in the 1960s and 1970s had its roots in various historical art movements, but for Milton, the time he spent studying etching with Giorgio Morandi in Italy, manifested itself in an intense focus on line. That thin black line, filled in with swaths of flat bright color, easy and quick to produce with assistants, became much in demand. These cheerfully psychedelic ads for Fanta are the natural culmination of that style. We hold several original drawings plus proofs for alternate designs in the archives. While the flag-waving lips with big brown loafers remain constant throughout, the pen and ink illustrations, featuring a Fanta-loving Neptune and a one-man trumpet-nosed dance band, are the nuttiest of all.

I’ve been unable to determine if these ads actually ran, though Fanta had clearly embraced this style in the early 1970s when animator and director Ralph Bakshi produced trippy commercials for the company.

This post also appears in PRINT.