Beautiful Illustration + Mod Feel = I’m in Love.

One of the most famous examples of a brand’s identity being forever tied with a illustration is Morton Salt’s Umbrella Girl. They adopted it originally in 1914 because of their tag line; “When it Rains, It Pours“. For those of you who don’t know, the table salt we use today has a chemical in it that keeps it from clumping. Back in the day before they pioneered that solution, salt used to clump up all the time. That’s where Morton Salt came in with this innovative idea and clever marketing scheme.

Timeline — They Grow Up So Fast

Early versions looked similar to Shirley Temple — although in reality, the Morton Salt creation preceded Shirley Temple’s birth by almost a decade. The golden age of the Umbrella Girl (1914-1940) does not stand out to me and looks dated even though it built the company’s image for a quarter of a decade. They lack the personality that I have come to love in the newer versions.

The 1941 revamp brought a significant change that would lead to the Umbrella Girl we know today. The improved printing techniques allowed them to use a bright yellow to offset that deep indigo. Also, the Umbrella Girl now has longer hair in pig-tails and is literally glowingly happy in her expression.

Lucia Lerner

Leif Peng from Today’s Inspiration Blog writes that Lucia, who was an artist for a art studio in Chicago was responsible for the redesign. She transcended the 1941 illustration and brought the simple elegance of what I feel is the best Umbrella Girl. The Umbrella Girl needed to exist in a simpler line-art/outline style for the packaging first and that’s what Lucia probably was hired to do for them as Lucia excelled at that type of illustration. Once that was established, Morton Salt could hire any ad agency (and any art studio they chose) to provide appropriate advertising illustrations for the media requested.

Leif suspects this ad came out of the same studio as the “Coppertone Tone Girl”.

This is a style that any number of art studios at that time could have provided. This is probably my single most favorite image of the Umbrella Girl.

Still Fresh

The present day Umbrella Girl that was created in 1968. Even though I love love love 1950s era version, the newest iteration has massive visual appeal as well. It needed to be updated because the look that 1950s style quickly went out of style as the fifties and sixties came and went. Think of the shiny and happy Beatles when they first came on the scene in the mid-1950s versus the eternally mod and hip Beatles of the late 1960s.

The Morton Salt Umbrella Girl is a fine example of how branding transcends itself through the years. We better enjoy the packaging while we can because the next version will probably have her in Crocs, talking on a iPhone with a Chihuahua.

Like the flavor of this article? We savor comments, so please serve up your thoughts!

And yes, I’d appreciate it if you’d build in as many food puns into your comment as humanly possible.

Major thanks to Leif Peng from today’s inspiration blog! Go check it out!

This entry was posted on Sunday, April 5th, 2009 at 9:39 pm and is filed under Branding, Design, General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.