We’ve looked before at how the brand power of universities was once used to advertise other products and services. Today we’ll have a quick look at how universities advertised themselves – through the medium of postcards!
If you’re of my vintage, you’ll remember the UCCA and PCAS books, which listed all of the courses you could do, and where you could do them, and maybe filing cabinets in the school library or careers office full of prospectuses. You’d go to a university open day and come away with a glossy prospectus, and maybe a leaflet or two about the courses you were interested in. The prospectus was a big deal: large print runs, many layers of scrutiny to make sure that it was right (and that it didn’t have in it any courses which the university wasn’t certain it was going to run) and a deadline typically 22 months ahead of the September for which it was valid.
(As an aside, I remember when – a great innovation – one of the universities for which I worked decided to make a slimmed down prospectus with a CD-ROM. Once upon a time the future was so bright.)
Anyway, having printed thousands of prospectuses, the trick was to get them in the hands of prospective students. And this is where the promotional post card came in. The one above dates from between 1995 (when 0171 became one of the London telephone area codes) and 2002 (when the University of North London merged with London Guildhall University to form London Metropolitan University.)
Sometimes a card would be used to advertise a particular programme or subject, like this one from the University Northampton.
(Criminology is still going strong at Northampton: it’s celebrating 25 years this year. I think this card must date from its early years, when the subject would have been getting off the ground.)
Here’s one from Sheffield Hallam University.
The only postcards I have which directly speak to the institution as a whole are from post-1992 universities, which clearly felt competitive pressures more than the universities which had had that title for longer. And just like the UNL advert above, it seeks to emphasise, indirectly, the transferable skills which come from higher education.
And this one, from Central St Martins, part of the University of the Arts, London, is probably my favourite.
Used to advertise their end of year degree shows, the poem reads:
I once had a goat that could knit / Woolly garments that didn’t quite fit / Legs and sleeves were too long / And they didn’t half pong / While the rest of the garment just split!
And finally, this one from the former University of Wales College, Newport, simply promotes the brand. Not very successfully, it turns out – the college merged with the then University of Glamorgan in 2013 to form the University of South Wales.
None of the cards here were posted – the heyday of postcards was well and truly done by the time these were produced. There’s a jigsaw here of the University of North London card at the top, and as a bonus here’s one of Central St Martin’s knitting goat.