As the country moved toward collapse, social unrest and inevitable casualties increased. The paranoid state began anonymously exterminating citizens who so much as hinted at insurrection. Average (and the vast numbers of below-average) people were killed in street clashes between opposing factions and there were spates of frightened suicides. It’s pretty good. The invented memorabilia is a great touch and the humor and satire generally hit the mark. Still, it’s more flippant than anything, so the story of the missing sons doesn’t make a big impact and scarfolk never really gets established in a memorable and unique way, more so serving as a vehicle for the book’s excursions into cold-war-era paranoiac nostalgia. Scientists (and advertising agency executives who planned to exploit the results) predicted the result would produce “a wide variety of positive images, including majestic British landscapes accompanied by the sounds of waves and music as beautiful as anything written by maestros such Sir Edward Elgar or Cliff Richard”. At first, because of the washed-up colors of the images, I thought it was on purpose, some kind of 70's-esque nod, but the pixellation and low resolution of the images is quite clear in some points. As one of the greatest trumps of the blog is exactly the amazing Scarfolk design aesthetics, it is very unfortunate to see the images in such low quality. Littler currently resides in Germany, but he grew up in the North West of England. He lived in Radcliffe near Bury until 1976 (when he was six) whereupon his family moved to Timperley, a small suburb south of Manchester. At various times Timperley has been home to Caroline Aherne, Chris Sievey (of Frank Sidebottom fame), and Ian Brown and John Squire of The Stone Roses. Littler admits that growing up there, as well as in Radcliffe, has made a direct impact on his work.

Scarfolk, the Most Spectacular Dystopia of the 1970s Visiting Scarfolk, the Most Spectacular Dystopia of the 1970s

Richard Littler had a frightening childhood, too, but as a designer and screenwriter, he turned his memories of life in suburban Britain during the 1970s into a haunting and hilarious blog and book about the fictional dystopian town of Scarfolk. Littler mined the dark side of his childhood to create pamphlets, posters, book covers, album art, audio clips, and television shorts—remnants of life in a paranoid, totalitarian 1970s community, where even babies are not to be trusted. The Scarfolk blog draws on a particularly late 20 th Century aesthetic, one which Littler has grown to increasingly like during the time he’s been using it. The Under-7s Fire Service was one of several children's emergency services in Scarfolk. There was also a mountain/volcano* rescue team and an SAS-style toddler regiment. The children received little training but they did get a lolly if they were good and/or survived their first week of active duty. The Opportunity Doorway scheme for women was launched in 1976. Here's an excerpt from the council's literature:The ice-cream van man came between 3 and 4 a.m. His van blared out the haunting Swedish Rhapsody numbers station. The ice-cream van man wore a clown mask to disguise the horrific burns on his face because he didn’t want to frighten the children. It didn’t work. He used clothes pegs to hold the mask on because he was missing an ear. He lived in a nondescript building in an electrical substation and no one knew his name.

Discovering Scarfolk - Design Week Discovering Scarfolk - Design Week

Paving slab damage was reduced by 25%, but the problem transferred to locomotives, specifically their paintwork, which was at risk of chipping after pushing people in front of trains became the new, preferred method of amateur execution.Worried citizens gathered in secret to discuss the poster campaign. Knowing that most homes contained surveillance devices, they debated the poster non-verbally, using hand gestures. Unbeknownst to the clandestine groups, however, specially-trained police mime experts had infiltrated the meetings and reported everything they saw to Scarfolk's police commissioner who, keen to outdo his predecessor's record, had created the public information campaign to boost arrest numbers. Not everything is quite so unbelievable, though. Recently unearthed Scarfolk posters and initiatives seem strikingly applicable to current events. Last week, Littler put up aset of “ Foreigner Identification Badges,” which require all immigrants to publicly identify themselves as “Foreign Cuisine Infiltrators” or “Believers in Non-English-Speaking Deities”—clear satire of a certain strain of anti-immigration rhetoric. Many of Scarfolk’s initiatives are surveillance themed. The Scarfolk Education Board was very keen on administering corporal punishment from the moment an infant entered the school system. Punishment was meted out for a wide range of misdemeanours including: 'being less than 5ft tall', 'not being able to clearly elucidate the works of Ludwig Wittgenstein via the medium of mime' and 'poor attendance due to injuries sustained as a result of corporal punishment'. My daughter is a musician. I get the feeling that we are in a period of intense incubation drawn out longer than usual by the glut of choices. There probably will be another artistic eruption similar to that of the 60’s eventually and perhaps accompanied and energized by social unrest too.

Discovering Scarfolk by Richard Littler | Waterstones

Albion Estate was built in 1970. It was described as "strong and stable public housing that proudly secures our future and makes Britain the envy of the world." I’ve come to appreciate that municipal/government aesthetic, including post-war architecture, more since I started Scarfolk. I like ephemeral artefacts, old branding, library music, public information campaigns that have been largely relegated to the cultural dustbin and didn’t have a life outside of their time, though I’m aware that people like me recycling them give them a new kind of life.” The Scarfolk blog itself is still very much active, though. Its popularity continues to grow, partly because the way in which it refracts the present through the prism of the past makes it very relevant to our troubled times. For many, we actually seem to be living in Scarfolk these days.My Mom still listens to Evangelicals on TV. She told me just this week of a prophesy that there would not be a 2016 Presidential election if Christians don’t start praying! Yes this is entirely satirical, but there are genuine horror element here. The artworks are especially brilliant. The humour of Scarfolk is often very dark indeed, and Littler has only occasionally balked at mining his youth for laughs.