Above: Page C6 from The New York Times, 20 November 2007. (Click here to enlarge.)

Above: The New York Times Magazine’s “Year in Ideas” issue, 2004. Chalk drawing by Nicholas Blechman and Brian Rea. Photograph by Zachary Scott. (More credits here.)

Stuart Elliott’s column in The New York Times today rounds up a number of “separated at birth” advertising campaigns, like the AT&T “Works in More Places” ads featuring made up place names like “New Sanfrakota” (more on these AT&T ads here and here), and ads for a company called Riverbed Technology that are strikingly similar, right down to the orange background and typeface style (Gotham for AT&T, Avenir—once Cingular’s font of choice—for Riverbed).

But we couldn’t help but notice the Shell ad that ran with Elliott’s article, visible to readers of the paper but not to those reading the essay online. That ad, featuring a white-shirted-and-red-sweatered girl making delicate line drawings on a chalkboard, is itself strkingly similar to the cover of the Times Magazine’s 2004 “Year in Ideas” issue featuring a photo by Zachary Scott. Art Director Arem Duplessis respun his own cover into a cover for the Society of Publication Designers 40th Annual, and illustrators Nicholas Blechman and Brian Rea recently reprised their chalk drawings at a conference in San Francisco. It seems pretty safe to say that the Shell ad wasn’t shot by Scott or his team, as it includes a small disclaimer on the lower left reading, “Based on a Zachary Scott photo.” Hmmmm.