Fabulously British

And now for my major Typology work for this unit (those previous ones were teeny tiny compared to this bad boy!). We were asked to create a major Typology piece; something that we put a lot of thought, research and practise into and having been living in London for about 9 months now, I decided that I wanted to focus on something that was fabulously and uniquely British, in homage to the country that I am making my home. As as I’ve spoken about before in my blog, there is one part of the British culture and history that I love; that can’t be found anywhere else: Pubs! I find myself spending quite a lot of time in pubs (working, drinking and relaxing) and I can’t get enough of the atmosphere and unique culture that they generate. Now as an Australian, I know we drink a lot of beer, lager in particular, but I’ve noticed that the English tipple of choice is Ale. The brewing and care process in itself is unique, with ale needing to be settled and tapped, which once done the barral can go off within a week. The task of serving ale is serious business with organisations such as Cask Marque and CAMRA regularly visiting pubs and tasting the ales, making sure they are up to scratch. And people take their ales very seriously, with it being usual practise to sample the ales first (just to make sure it’s the one for you!). One thing in particular that I noticed, was that each different ale has its own badge that’s attached to the pump. Here are some examples:

Ale badges

After realising this, I decided to combine my love of pubs with my love of photography (once again) and photograph different ale badges for my major typology project. I carried my camera with my for weeks, and each time I went in to a pub, I asked the staff permission to photograph the ale badges. I went to pubs all over London, from The Tiger in Camberwell,  The Coal Hole on The Strand to The Duke of Wellington on Portobello Road and many more! I managed to photograph forty different ale badges, which allowed me to create a Typology of thirty-six badges:

Ale Badges

Not only was this project interesting and sociable but I am very happy with how it turned out and have every intention of continuing it and adding even more badges to my typology!