Taking a step back in time

And for anyone who needs a gently reminder of just how much staff at the University of Central Lancashire have just the thing.

People can take a trip down Memory Lane through a week-long free exhibition charting old newspapers, retro packaging and forgotten Polytechnic artefacts.

Office Ephemera has been put together by three design lecturers from the university who have combined artefacts from UCLan’s library with their own personal items to present a visual nostalgic nod to how times have changes.

The 40-year-old archive is designed to take people back to the days when public information posters were politically incorrect, Dixons was a popular high street brand and Lancashire Polytechnic ashtrays were a coffee table must around campus.

Curator Andy Bainbridge said: “It’s really an exhibition of things that people tend to throw away, such as bags and packaging, but when you look back on them you realise their value in capturing that moment in time.

“Through this exhibition, we can see how the high street has transformed, how our consumer habits have evolved and how public attitudes have changed.”

It also includes other things like tourist information leaflets from the 1970s, design students’ work from Lancashire Polytechnic and national newspapers dating back 30 years.

Most of the work was saved for design students to use for reference, the Google of the time .

The content will be updated every day so it’s an ever-changing display.