Well Hung! Stall of Cards (1987)
The word 'small ad' might well apply to this entirely functional bit of graphic design, tucked away as it was deep inside an advert-crammed rag week magazine. But whoever threw it together on behalf of Stall of Cards – probably while sitting at one of those beige mid-eighties computers that had a screen the size of a light-bulb, ran off floppy discs and weighed a ton – managed to squeeze a whole lot into the little space they had to work with.
Stall of Cards try to appeal to every possible demographic at once. That saucy headline helps to pin down where every smutty birthday card you ever got from that dodgy uncle came from. And that list of 'awfully nice' flowers, teddy bears, trains, cats and cottages isn't so much a list of stock as a description of your own mantelpiece when you put out all the cards you got on your thirtieth from random relatives you last saw when you were seven. It's enough to give Mary Portas the vapours.
But that's half the charm of this advert. They were selling on Victoria Market and weren't so much a brand as, well, just somebody with a till standing behind a load of stuff that happened to be piled in the same racks and sold in one place. If it was made of flimsy cardboard, had a fold in it somewhere and came with an envelope, Stall of Cards was going to sell it to you. 'Lifestyle' means nothing here.
Want glitter on it? No problem. A crap party balloon stapled to the front, so it's punctured before you even start blowing it up? Right this way, madam. Sleazy uncles who were still dressing like it was the seventies right up to Operation Yewtree, dotty nanas buying birthday cards for their dogs, middle-aged trainspotters, mums from Basford with a thing for thatched cottages, six year olds with incurable kitten fetishes... Stall of Cards has all of you covered and wants to let you know that.
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