Life, 1920-04-15 · page 35 of 44
Life — April 15, 1920 — page 35: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This is primarily **advertising, not satire or political commentary**. It's a Warren Standard Printing Papers company advertisement appearing in *Life* magazine (page 719). The ad uses instructional content about printing rubber stamps to promote Warren's paper products. The key message: printing quality depends not just on the design or engraving, but critically on using the *right paper*. The visual shows a rubber stamp being used, a printing press in operation, and examples of stamp impressions. The accompanying text explains that while simple rubber-stamp printing is straightforward, creating a *professional* image of a rubber stamp for sales purposes requires skilled craftspeople, careful engraving, and—crucially—properly manufactured paper. The sidebar slogan "better paper / better printing" emphasizes Warren's core marketing claim: their standardized papers produce superior results, which any printer or merchant would recognize and seek out. This represents typical early-20th-century *Life* advertising: educational content designed to appear as editorial material while subtly promoting the advertiser's products to business buyers.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
THE rubber stamp is | better | paper | | printing simple primary method of printing, Yo printing press — ur rubber stamp | and his [ 1‘ printing a fine catalog { were as simple a matter as wielding a rubber stamp, there might be some excuse for the general idea that a printer shouldn't require much time or material to turn out a good job. But even to print a picture of a rubber stamp requires time, judgment. costly materials, and the work of a number of skilled men. Before you can print a picture you must make one—and right there, right at the beginning, it is well to know what kind of paper the picture is to be printed on [f you merely want a picture of a rubber stamp to illustrate a point, a simple outline drawing that suggests a stamp is enough. But suppose you had rubber stamps to sell, and you wanted to make a picture of your stamp so true to life that people would want to buy it of you Then you want a specially good picture This picture would be engraved on a copper plate, with lines reversed just as they are on the bottom of the stamp. The plate would be put s. D. Re (STAN DARD A CATALOG picture of a rubber stamp. WARREN COMPANY, nN ty "HE printing a betler way exactly wehat on a press, where first ink and then the printing paper would engage the sur- face. Now then—if the pic- ture and the engraving were made for just any good paper, and just any good paper were used, your printed result might be pretty good rollers, plate But if you are particularly proud of the thing you are selling, it is worth while to use a paper manufactured to exactly the standards of the printing you want done Most printers are familiar with the Warren Standard Vrinting Papers and what the War ren Standards have done to further the cause of Better Paper, Better Printing. Examples of the kind of printing any buyer of printing may legitimately expect if a Warren Standard Printing Paper is used may be secured by writing us, or by consulting Warren's Paper Buyer's Guide, or the Warren Service Library hese books are on exhibit in the offices of cata log printers and merchants who sell the Warren Standard Printing Papers Mass Bostox, Pri nti ng Pa pers comicbooks.com