Ford Advertisement

Artist’s colour palette for Ford 1928

Any Colour but Black

Advertising campaigns using celebrities to push products have a long history. In 1929, the Ford Motor Company commissioned three of Australia’s leading artists—George Lambert, Sydney Ure Smith and Thea Proctor—to produce colour harmonies, suitable for Australian conditions, for a range of fourteen Ford cars.

‘The day of the drab, inartistic car is over’ stated this brochure to launch the range. The idea was to go back to the eighteenth century, before the age of mass production, when artists were involved in industrial design. ‘Under the guidance of a fine artist, the most utilitarian articles, made by mass production methods, may become things of beauty through the application of colour.’

It was a huge success, with the new colours ‘killing the demand for all the old ugly standard colours’.
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