I was only employed with Butte Herrero &Hyde for this short time before they dissolved their partnership, but I was able to see the creation of a great number of their jobs. At, that same time, I was able to create my very first bits of commercial art — a rose for a “shelf-talker” (very small, but my first printed piece of commercial art.)
And also, I executed my first “mechanicals”, in other words: “paste-ups”— the Shell note pads, matchbooks and matchboxes. These were the client’s promotional giveaways. I was learning, all the time: what supplies are needed — how to keep the petty cash box “in the black” — where to research (like the SF Mechanic’s Institute Library, located at 57 Post Street. It was founded in 1854 to serve the vocational needs of out-of-work gold miners)— how to package and mail finished art (to say, Chicago.) — and how to protect large transparencies of BH&H’s artwork. This last task required cleaning the transparency and its protective acetate sleeve from lint, then framing it with clean black heavy stock at a uniform size to fit with the hundreds of their other samples kept in three file drawers. No digital files of samples in those days.
I met type-reps, paper-reps and printer-reps. I also had a last-minute lesson from BH&H’s bookkeeper on invoicing, record keeping, etc. All of this I could never have learned at a school. It all prepared me for my life as a free-lance artist — which came sooner than I had expected.
Ann Thompson
BH&H Creativity as shown in the 1964 and1965 ADASF Annual Shows’ Publications
This “GOODYEAR” ad is in color because I saved a copy torn from Life magazine. More about its creation can be found at Our Favorite Places-Community of Creatives. See “How It Happened”.
The following B&W scans are from the annuals.
This completes my nearly complete collection of the extensive accomplishments of Butte, Herrero and Hyde from their last year as a partnership:
