costing along

CHRIS BOLTON INHERITED A WHOPPING BIG VINTAGE BEER MAT COLLECTION.

My father-in-law and his brother collected beer mats as kids in the 1960s. When their father passed away in 2017, we were clearing out his house and discovered the collection neatly stored away in crates in the attic, untouched for 40 years. They were destined for the trash before I saw them and offered to take them home. It was only when I got home and started looking through them that I realised what a treasure trove of vintage design they were.

The exact history of the beer mats is hard to come by, but I know they were collected in the 1960s through to the early ’70s, when they were a much more common form of advertising. The majority of this collection is alcohol-related, but they also cover topics as broad as cheese, theatre productions, holiday destinations and government schemes. My father-in-law and his brother were members of various collector clubs that would exchange and share mats, and they wrote directly to breweries all over the world requesting them. Plus, with their mother chaperoning, they visited pubs and hotels to collect them from bar tops and tables.

I haven’t counted, but there are somewhere around 1000 pieces all up. I love the humorous ones – the ones that are witty and a snapshot of a bygone era of advertising. They have a quirk and charm that modern design can sometimes lack. As a graphic designer and type nerd myself, I’ve always loved vintage design, and the collection has a broad range of styles and subjects that fascinate me.

None of the beer mats have been used. They were produced cheaply on low-quality pulp cardboard for single use (once wet they’re done for), so outside of collections, beer mats from that era are hard to find. I keep them in the original crates they were stored in from the 1960s. They’d been meticulously organised by brand and country, so I’ve tried to keep them like that. As they were stored out of sunlight in the attic, the condition and vibrancy of the colours make them look like they could have rolled off production yesterday.

I started documenting the collection on Instagram as inspiration for fellow graphic designers, but the reaction and interest has been much greater and broader than I expected. I’ve even been approached about making the collection into a book! My initial goal was to keep posting and sharing as long as I had more followers than I did posts, so for now, I have a lot more scanning to do.

See more of Chris's collection at @_pulp_culture