The right kind of memories

During a recent presentation by contextual studies lecturer (and occasional chemist) James Battersby, we were encouraged to be creative in our layout -- "After all," he said, "you are design students."

So, while writing my recent Literature & Contextual Review, the thought struck me that I should take him at his word and apply appropriate styling to my work: something which would trigger nostalgic memories in any assessor who looked at it.

Firstly, I needed to define my target audience.  Most of the relevant tutors who would be likely to be looking at the work would range in age from 20 through to 50, with a median around 40 years old.  So I picked something which was likely to trigger memories in somebody who grew up in the 1970s, especially someone with more academic leanings, but was likely to have a slightly wider appeal...

The 1978 double LP Jeff Waynes' Musical Version of The War of the Worlds was a big hit back in its day, and sported recognisable artwork which contained iconic images which would stick in peoples' minds -- for example, the tripod on the front cover, or the horror image of a bird tugging at Martian flesh.  It had been re-released enough times to suggest that it would resonate with a fairly wide age range.

I had felt confident that this would unlock memories, but upon seeing the artwork images, I realised that these might cause negative reactions in addition to positive ones, especially out of context.  In addition, it would prove difficult to justify their inclusion, as they are not thematically connected to the academic work being produced.  As a final nail-in-the-coffin, the logo -- which I had hoped might have some stylistic nostalgia -- is not sufficiently recognisable in isolation away from the 'tripod'.

So, I set about looking for a new theme.

While noodling on the 'academic' angle, I looked for associated triggers from primary school.  This led me to Ladybird Books.  As I explored this angle, it became apparent that this format would make an excellent vessel for an academic piece, mainly due to the formal styling and very broad age appeal.  Many tutors would be unlikely to have read a Ladybird book for decades, so the 'deeper' memory would result in a stronger affect.

A trawl of Google images gave a lot of material to sample, but it was Boys and Girls: A Ladybird Book of Childhood which provided a major source of illustrations.  I had hoped to create original images in the Ladybird style, but time was against me -- so I hoped that copyright infringement would not be an issue in an obvious homage.

One thing which came as a surprise was the choice of typeface.  My own memory suggested that the books used a basic Times, Helvetica or Gill Sans.  However, research showed that many Ladybird books actually used Sassoon Primary.  In a quest for authenticity I tried using Sassoon, but found it to be largely unusable for formal text.  In the end I actually plumped for Sasson for headings but Century Schoolbook for main text, because it was more evocative of the textbooks of my youth -- another example of percieved memories winning over factual content.

The final aesthetics for my Literature Review are shown below.  I opted for an authentic-looking cover; with right-side illustrations related to the left-page text; and dropped example photographic illustrations in the right-side image spot in later pages.  I had hoped to present the finished item as a hardcover-bound book but, again, ran short on time.

This themed approach worked well for a document, and I believe that there is potential for a licensed children's game based on this visual styling, perhaps aimed more at a 'grandparent' audience but accessible for 4-7 year-olds.