Orcajo Photo Art Service of Dayton, Ohio, with their distinctive hand-lettered, hand-drawn Art Deco typography, designed and printed some of the most memorable advertising postcards of the 1920’s, 30’s and 40’s. They specialized in real photo postcards for the sideshow, vaudeville, circus, theatre, novelty and variety business, but also produced cards of baseball players, boxers and other sports figures.


(above ad from The Billboard, 1936)

Many of their postcards were inspired by the business and art of showcard writing and design. Showcard writing had its origins in vaudeville where performers had their “card” written by a typographical artist who usually worked for the theatre directly, or had a shop within close proximity, since the shows sometimes changed weekly.