Laws change for a reason; the parliamentary archives ensure we keep track of how society has progressed. The Representation of the people Act was the first big step towards a true democracy in the UK—it enfranchised all men over 21 and women over 30 with specific land requirements. Georgie believes more of the young generation should be aware of this act and the campaigning/suffering that was undertook to achieve it.
This campaign, based around a manifesto zine, is titled We’ve Come A Long Long Way together. This is a popular culture reference to Fatboy Slim’s track "Praise you", a contemporary tool to incite recognition among the younger generation—the track talks of celebrating how far we’ve come despite difficult circumstances. These packs are designed to be distributed after music events in order to reach the target audience.
The campaign pack contains a poster series, manifesto style zine, leaflet, postcards and stickers. During research it was found that although we have universal enfranchisement, less than half of the younger (18 – 24 years old) citizens vote. Using Suffragette history and the Representation of the People Act 1918 to communicate the importance of our enfranchisement, the campaign aims to engage more young people, girls in particular, with using their vote and to furthermore promote the Parliamentary Archives. Key research elements include a feminist manifesto by Mina Loy, the geek manifesto by Mark Henderson, photography of Suffragette campaigners and the Suffragette banner held at the archives for reference on protest graphics. These informed the aesthetic output and punchy tone of the final outcome.
Screen printing was selected for the purpose of mass producing the poster series, where it was found through experimentation, a beautiful gradient could be achieved between the suffragette’s colours. Working on a purely typographical basis, the protest graphics speak for themselves—there is an abundance of emotive/hard hitting suffragette photography out there yet these are not included because the principle of suffragette history had already informed this project in the drawing of contemporary parallels. The suffragette banner held at the archives was used for typographic inspiration—English Grotesque for headings and Mrs Eaves for the body copy (a variant of Baskerville and given a female name).
From a brief with open entries, this project was chosen to be featured by the Parliamentary Archives:
https://archives.blog.parliament.uk/2018/04/05/winchester-school-of-art-legislation-inspires-art/
https://archives.blog.parliament.uk/2018/04/05/winchester-school-of-art-legislation-inspires-art/
