Y10 Graphics Trip: London Transport Museum and Museum of Brands

On Friday the 28 January, the Year 10 Graphics class went on a trip to the London Transport Museum and the Museum of Brands.

The first stop of the trip was the London Transport Museum. The group began by exploring the second floor, where they found replicas of trains, collections of old trinkets and tube posters. The students spent time analysing them for key themes, as well as looking at the formal elements and design principles in them and how they could help inspire our own posters. The students also made small sketches of parts of the posters to show how the brands used a certain design principle and to reference them later. Afterwards, the group looked at the textile, font and map designs of the tube. After another hour analysing the content on the ground floor of the museum, the students regrouped to head on to the Museum of Brands.

Caspar (10H2) said, “The transport museum greatly deepened my understanding of the history of the tube’s branding and advertisement throughout the years. I especially enjoyed the display showing the development of the tube map.”

Next, they visited the Museum of Brands and explored the Time Tunnel: a tunnel full of packaging, posters, pictures, magazines and all sorts of other example of design across the 20^th and 21^st centuries.

Akaash (10R2) commented: “design is always changing with production, preferences and the availability of technology”.

The group saw how the designs transitioned from detailed illustrations and darker colours to more vibrant colours in block sections, giving a more modern or clean look. Afterwards, they headed upstairs to do our workshop, which included analysing the design of various products such as a Lucozade bottle or a Smarties tube. The students considered the target audience along with aspects of the design that made it appealing.

The students moved on to look at another collection of packaging design on items specific to the 20^th Century.

Jai (10C2) said, “I really enjoyed the trip. My favourite part of visiting the London Transport Museum was viewing all the different posters and learning about the development of the London Underground map, a map that will play a key role in my own poster design. The Museum of Brands was amazing as it displayed hundreds of different brands and it was incredible to see packages and logos dating so far back. Thank you so much to the Art Department for organising this experience.”

At the end of an educational day, with the students ready to use their new knowledge on their London Underground poster projects, they returned to Elstree.

By Oscar 10R