Design by Coincidence?

Recently I’ve been scanning my modest collection of old matchbox labels and have noticed some similarities in design with old baseball cards. Most of the similarities seem to be unintentional. For example, here are three matchbox covers where the red stripe at the bottom are filled with bold text.

Do they remind you of a famous baseball series? How about the classic 1933 Goudey set? Here are three cards from that series followed by a grouping of retired cards from our Helmar-R319 set.

I don’t for a moment believe that the Swedish matchbox designers were familiar with the Goudey cards. It is interesting, however, that two sets of graphic designers on different continents adopted the same look.

A Surprising Conclusion Coming

 Now take a gander at the Japanese examples below. The red background concept was used on thousands of different Japanese designs over many years. True, manufacturers in other countries employed it as well–they all copied shamelessly from each other. It was by far most common in Japanese design, however. I’ll share some beautiful examples some other day.

Japan was a major, major exporter of matchboxes in the earlier decades of the 20th century.  Their designs were eye-catching, quirky, and their product was everywhere — including here in the United States. American graphic designers were certainly aware of the Japanese designs and most likely admired them. I don’t think that it is much of a stretch to imagine that the designers of the 1914-15 Cracker Jack cards were heavily influenced by them. What do you think?

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