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“At Red or Dead and now at HemingwayDesign we have always had access to what is without doubt Britain’s most comprehensive collection of cultural publications. It has helped us continue to create commercial and critically acclaimed products for over 25 years. Over the last couple of years, in association with the biggest popular culture museum in Britain and the University of Wolverhampton, we digitised the collection to create a wonderful creative resource the ‘Land of Lost Content’. LOLC is used by design teams from Marks and Spencer to Top Shop, by The BBC and by major advertising and design agencies internationally. Now Land of Lost Content is available to students and academics with the launch of www.edu.lolc.co.uk. It should provide an invaluable tool and creative resource that students can take through college and on into their careers and also provide a great resource for teachers.”

Wayne Hemingway MBE

Have a browse through the LOLC website by going to http://www.edu.lolc.co.uk/ If you are not yet registered then please follow the instructions on the page. If you experience any problems registering then please contact lolc@wlv.ac.uk Want to know more about the histories of items such as Biba, Cadbury’s, Action Man and Puma then follow the link below! http://www.edu.lolc.co.uk/wiki/index.php/Main_Page

The Land of Lost Content takes its name from our popular culture museum in Craven Arms in Shropshire, where my collection is housed. The museum is run by myself and my husband Dave, and has been a labour of love for many years.

I was born in Birmingham in October 1951, and then moved to a village in the country by well meaning parents. The strange village life that confronted me seemed like life on Mars and I have felt like an outsider and taken on a role as a commentator ever since. I was made to attend Stratford-on-Avon Girls’ Grammar. I hated my time there, but honed my art skills and learned how to be an effective outsider. I then chose to do fine art as you could leave school early in those days without staying on to the sixth form. Art schools only expected you to have five O’Levels. This sounds like I chose an easy option – indeed there were many free loading art students in those times.

I managed to get through five years of angst and poverty by having what I thought to be a good idea every twenty minutes or so. Almost every artist working today is doing something I already thought of in the 1970’s. This is very annoying – as they seem to be rich and I am not.

The good idea I followed with conviction was the exploitation of nostalgia. I have always been aware of time passing and as a commentator since childhood I draw people’s attention to what is going on, and of course, what went on in the past. I put down the eclectic nature of my collection to my butterfly mind. Things interest me for about an hour and then I move on. The quantity of my acquisitions depends entirely on whether I follow leads or ignore them. Acquiring things is a basic human urge that comes from hunter/gatherer necessity. I was born with no maternal instincts; I look after your past!

The LOLC Museum in Craven Arms is a great place to go visit for the day! It is about a five minute walk from the train station. The museum is full of inspirational items for all design students.
http://www.lolc.org.uk/



The Land of Lost Content
The Market Hall
Market Street
Craven Arms
Shropshire
SY7 9NW
Tel: 01588 676176 Opening Hours – 11am – 5pm everyday but Wednesday, January - November

Stella’s Top Buys



During the winter months of December and January the museum at Craven Arms is closed. This means Dave and I have no income at all and yet the opportunity to get to all kinds of wonderful gatherings with buying opportunities. This is deeply frustrating – like touring sweet shops with only one week’s pocket money to last you. Or going on a pub crawl with the price of two pints in your pocket. Enter the world of overdraft. There are some places I simply have to go and people I really have to meet.



We went to Stafford Showground (collectors fair) before Christmas and Donnington Park Collector in early January. My long accrued knowledge of what’s collectable has me firing on all cylinders and yet at the same time remaining outwardly cool and unemotional. This is very difficult. I come home screaming with delight and usually a couple of hundred quid worse off. I bought a bright red table top bubble gum machine with bubble gum still in it, with an old penny-in-the-slot mechanism. It cost £55 (I got her down from £75) which I thought very cheap – but sometimes other people do not agree with me. Luckily Dave is never one of those people. We also got a Nylon stocking dispenser. This is a large wooden slot machine which I think would have been installed in the restroom of a female-staffed store, perhaps M&S or Woolworth’s. You bought a pair of nylons (this is the word used) for five shillings. I have never seen one of these before – I paid £30…..a snip! (Or was it? Everything is relative).

Yesterday, 29th January, we went to two private homes to collect clothing from two rather eccentric ladies (hoarders are usually eccentric – you wouldn’t believe some of the places we go).

At LOLC, we want you to be inspired.



Take a look at these links.



http://www.staffs.ac.uk/schools/art_and_design/studios/stud_dsc.htm
The Design Collection at Staffordshire University is open to all: students, staff, researchers and the general public. It is a teaching and handling collection and operates a loan scheme. It’s really worth a visit!



http://www.vam.ac.uk/moc/whats_on/future/space_age/index.html
This exhibition is on at the V&A Museum until April 2008. It is worth going to see. It looks at the effects space travel has had on everyday life, focusing on design and fantasy worlds that both children and adults create.



http://www.designmuseum.org/exhibitions/online/a-century-of-chairs
This online exhibition at the Design Museum is worth a look. It shows a huge range of chair designs from the 1900’s to the present day.

Go and see Ang Lee’s new film ‘Lust, Caution’. It is a thriller set in Shanghai during World War II. The costumes are great!

If you haven’t seen ‘Control’, a profile of Ian Curtis, the enigmatic singer of Joy Division, then do. It visually sums up post punk style.



http://www.bbc.co.uk/pressoffice/pressreleases/stories/2007/04_april/11/ashes.shtml
If you loved the BBC’s nostalgia fest “Life on Mars” then watch the follow up “Ashes to Ashes” set in 1981 London. It starts on BBC1, Thursday 7th February at 9:00pm.

Student Competitions
Students at the University of Wolverhampton have been working with www.edu.lolc.com for the past eighteen months. We would like to share an assignment with you as inspiration for how you might like to work with the resource yourselves. Send us pictures of your outcomes!



Student Assignment Brief

THE LAND OF LOST CONTENT…..A visual feast from the banal to the curious….memories from childhood – your own, your parents, your grandparents….funky, stylish, kitsch and quirky collections!

This assignment has been designed to develop an informed knowledge of business and market awareness linked to professional practice. You will develop effective strategies for undertaking primary visual and design research and investigate the integration of these ideas into the production of a body of design conclusions that satisfy particular product specifications and market forces.

The Brief – LOLC Limited Editions!



You have a fantastic opportunity to access the Land of Lost Content website. This design resource is a wealth of information that you can tap into. Research and explore www.edu.lolc.co.uk selecting your own carefully chosen images for your ‘goodie bag’. Utilizing your findings, you are asked to develop ideas in two stages:

Stage 1
Design a signature collection that includes images for postcard/card/gift wrap/packaging.

Consider kitsch, historical, retro, illustrative, humorous, whacky, funky, surreal etc

Produce for your outcome:

A research file (goodie bag and related contextual information) Market investigation of card/gift wrap and alternative products to inform your own decision making Sketchbooks, primary reference, design development Final designs for signature collection including your personal branding

Stage 2
LOLC Limited Editions:
Your brief for this component is to develop your ideas further into design collections for alternative products.

Consider further paper products/packaging, scarves/ties, tabletop items, eggcups, glasses, mugs, trays, coasters, mouse mats etc…think alternative!

Produce for your outcome:

Finished design statement, collection of designs for selected product area 2-D visualisation of final collection and concept board, presented to a professional standard

LOLC competitions
In each of our newsletters we will be offering you the opportunity to take part in a competition. We want you to show us how you are using the information from LOLC creatively. For our first competition we would like you to respond to the assignment brief above and submit work for one of the following:

A design for a Mother’s Day greeting card - kitsch, historical, retro, illustrative, humorous, whacky, funky, surreal etc A design for Easter Egg packaging – think alternative! A design for a Father’s Day tie – man about town!

Please email us (lolc@wlv.ac.uk) to register your entry to the competition, including your name and address, LOLC password and the name of the institution where you are studying. We shall then send you details of how to submit your finished designs electronically. The competition deadline is 31 March 2008. Selected designs and designers will be promoted on the website. If the design is considered worthy of limited production, it could become a collectable in its own right…..this could be your moment of fame! The overall winner will receive a Bug Digital radio. Check it out here….. http://www.thebug.com/index.asp


What is HemingwayDesign up to at the moment?
Lots, as usual…..take a look at www.hemingwaydesign.co.uk. We use Land of Lost Content every day in our work.



Land of Lost Content images are used in the wonderful new Surface View range of murals. It is a great website worth having a play with, www.surfaceview.co.uk



In April, we launch our new range of outdoor furniture at B&Q. Without Land of Lost Content these deckchairs and sun beds couldn’t look half as good.


We would love to hear from you
Do you have any collections that you want to tell us about? An obsession with 20th century design and popular culture? Have you seen anything on the website you know about? We are looking for experts who can write Object Histories….and get paid! Get in touch with us for more information at lolc@wlv.ac.uk

Positive Feedback from other subscribers
Nottingham Trent University – “We’ve been getting lots of good feedback from students about the LOLC database. It’s a joy to see them learning in such a visual way!”

Warwickshire Educational Development Service – “We were drawn to LOLC and took a two year subscription because we feel that it has a great deal of potential in schools, including primary schools. Indeed only this week we have run a series of meetings for art subject leaders in primary schools and shown them some of the LOLC material. There was considerable interest and a couple of schools have come back to us with ideas already”.



We would like to know what you think and how you are using the LOLC website. Please email us on lolc@wlv.ac.uk to tell us more!