What I like about AMC's Mad Men is that its creator Matt Weiner is very conscious of the outside forces that are implicitly shaping his characters. The fictional advertising agency Sterling Cooper is set in the very real early sixties where revolutionary ideas are fomenting. In design, George Lois is challenging the traditional advertising aesthetic. In the third episode of Mad Men conventional ad executives are mystified by his "Think Small" campaign.

The Greenwich Village folk scene is also impinging on the consciousness of Madison Avenue as well. Don and the gang visit the Gaslight Café and encounter the beat aesthetic. The avatar of this counterculture, Bob Dylan, is heard on the soundtrack ("Don't Think Twice, It's All Right") in the final episode of the first season as the protagonist of the series, Don Draper confronts a personal crisis.

I recently wrote an article for the cultural webzine Popmatters about the collisions between these two major forces of the sixties, Lois and Dylan. They will connect several times after the turbulent decade is over. Take a look and you will see how these sixties icons intersected with the MTV era.

Here is the landmark video for "Jokerman," which combined the lyrics of Dylan and the design of Lois.