Oh Say, Can You See . . . Hot Dogs!

"HOT DOG!" (plate), and all images featured in this post, from The Great American Happy Birthday Book. Chicago: Jack Denst Designs, Inc., 1975.

«As we approach the 239th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, there's no better time to think about redecorating those boring walls in your home with something a little livelier: red-white-and-blue bunting, patriotic songs, or, best of all, hot dogs. If the idea seems appealing, we have the source book for you: The Great American Happy Birthday Book by Jack Denst Designs, Inc., published in 1975 and held in Watson Library Special Collections.»

This large, spiral-bound book is a trade catalog of commercial and domestic wall coverings, complete with swatch samples in vinyl and Mylar. The catalog is one of dozens produced by the company over the last fifty years.

Each sample faces a page of technical specifications outlining the available sizes and applications—whether it be as conspicuous as an entire indoor wall, as subtle as an accent, or as eye-catching as a repeating pattern.

If you were having any uncertainty about how this might look on your own walls, each design is also accompanied by a photograph suggesting how it might look installed in your very own 1970s-era living room or office.

Outlandish as these outsized designs might seem today, to put this volume in context you must remember how much hoopla surrounded the celebration of the United States Bicentennial in 1976: commemorative coins were struck, tall ships paraded in urban harbors, and everything that could be was colored red, white, and blue and covered in stars and stripes, from soda cans to fire hydrants.

A hallmark of Jack Denst Designs is the fanciful titles given to nearly every design: "Overproduction in a Box Factory," "Jack Frost, You Rascal," and "Isadora D. with Companion, Walking in the Rain." The firm's wall coverings were even featured in movies as diverse as Play Misty for Me (1971) and Bandits (2001). The company, originally founded in 1947 as Denst and Soderland, continues to this day.

The company was the brainchild of co-founder and Chicago native John "Jack" Denst (1923–2009). As a young man, Denst studied at the newly opened Chicago School of Design (now the IIT Institute of Design) under painter and photographer Laszlo Moholy-Nagy. A lifelong bachelor, Denst maintained two designer homes, in Chicago and Beverly Shores, Indiana, which he faithfully decorated in his own wall coverings (including several found in this book) and which he shared with his prize-winning Bedlington terriers.1 Denst retired in 1992 and eventually relocated to Florida.

[1] "Designer's Indiana Retreat: Interior Design by Jack Denst," Architectural Digest, Winter 1968/69, 32–43; "Designer's Chef-d'oeuvre: Interior Design by Jack Denst," Architectural Digest, Jan.–Feb. 1972, 26–33.