What does a 15 year old think of NAC brochures from the 80s?

NAC Stories entry written by Maggie (Aged 15 – Work experience at Norwich Arts Centre July 2019)

Looking through the archive was extremely interesting, because I learnt so much about not only music but the design of brochures/leaflets from the 1980s through to the 2000s, and how music was so significant to the public.
For example, the Weh Aye Cocker Club that started in the 80s, which encouraged the British Youth off the employment figures. The events were usually held on a Tuesday and Wednesday and a couple local bands would come to perform and sometimes an international act. Attending wasn’t expensive; it was 50p (equivalent to about £2.15) and you would receive a little booklet which would consist of random and wacky ramblings from the team members and a badge taped at the back, even films made by local teenagers. I found it interesting that young people would use music and this club to have a want to get a job and start earing money for themselves.
 
I also learnt that the Norwich Arts Centre was first known as ‘Premises’, and this also had events for young people, workshops specifically for women, and a lot of their events were jazz and blues based. If you couldn’t go to ‘Premises’ they had the Playbus which would travel to community centres, organisations and playgroups and always had a variety of activities. Tickets would range from 30p to £2.50 (£1.28 to £10.50 ish). Their events were very varied, they had mime festivals, tap dance workshops, poetry and so much more. Their jazz and blues festivals were very popular.
 
The International Women’s in Music festival was also very interesting because it was showing the importance in equality and feminism and how it was progressing through the 90s to how it is in present day. There was again, a wide variety of genres included in the festival, jazz and classical was popular.
 
I loved looking at the progression of printing and the design of the programmes/leaflets etc, because it showed how graphic design progressed. Colours were used more and more to attract more people, especially with colour becoming more popular, it was trendy to use bold colours and music was obviously linked to art so it meant that the way you promoted your events were important, to ensure that you grabbed the attention of people. In the 80s colour printers started to become more consumer-friendly in terms of cost and technology meaning that the numbers of people using colour in their means of promotion was pushed.