A NEWSPAPER AD FROM 1976

In 1976 Northwestern Hospital placed an ad in a Chicago newspaper announcing the opening of two new medical facilities.  Every copy of that advertisement-- except mine-- has now been used to line bird cages, wrap dead fish or fill garbage dumps.  That leaves me as the only person left to praise its evanescent poetry.

Northwestern hired illustrator Franklin McMahon to humanize the mission of the hospital for a general newspaper audience:

Detail

Look at the lovely, graceful way McMahon portrayed the grief of families in the waiting room:

  

Look at how beautifully he portrayed the architecture:

Detail

McMahon made complex medical equipment less foreboding and more interesting.

Today an advertiser would use photographs or (horrors!) photo-illustration to handle this mission.  

Northwestern Memorial Hospital in photograph (above) and illustration (below)

What a difference illustration makes in charm and in understanding.  But in fairness, there are very few illustrators left today who are capable of McMahon's thoughtful treatment of such a subject.