Celebratory Selfie Sentry

Next week we celebrate the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee.

It has been an honour to work on a concept design to mark the occasion and reflect a little on her amazing time on the throne in the UK.

It is safe to say there is little doubt there will be another monarch quite like Queen Elizabeth II, especially not one that will span as many decades and eras as she has. Without going into too much historic detail, it is staggering to consider what her reign has covered, including a total of 14 Prime Ministers since she ascended the throne aged 25 on 6 February, 1952 – spanning prime ministers from Churchill to the current Boris, not to mention the swinging sixties for good measure!

I am sure many of you know as much, if not, more than I about her and her life.

However, if you are a little rusty on the events of the British Queen, Netflix has made an entire historical series on her reign which is really worth a watch.

#thecrown

For me, the first Jubilee I can remember was the 1977 Silver Jubilee. With street parties and silver buses. I had my own figurine and loved seeing the Route Masters going about their business in London. I have recently noticed we have a few of the new Route Masters adorned in Platinum, I assume as a nod to those from the 70’s.

So what’s this all about I hear you question?

There are so many facets to the Queen’s life and icons which surround her. However, I thought it would be interesting to focus on the public engagement. Whilst this is not a specific Royal related item, I felt the ‘good old Sentry Box’ could benefit from a modern make over. It could be argued that the Sentry Box was the first ever ‘selfie space’, long before selfie was even a thing!!

London would not be London without the site of 1000’s of tourists taking shots of themselves at a Sentry Box with the poor guardsman trying to remain serene whilst on duty.

As a result, I became intrigued as we looked to create a contemporary twist on this much photographed item, a little like the Heatherwick designed RouteMaster in 2010.

Taking our AirClad technology it was not much of a hop skip and jump to design the modern Sentry Box. These flat packed pop up pods are ideal to tour the UK and export to other countries, creating an opportunity to supply our Royal UK fantasies to other parts of the world.  For those who cannot or chose not to travel to the UK, it can be possible to engage in some ‘Royal Selfing’ no matter where you might be. 

Additional Mod-cons? 

We have considered built in wifi and other cosy comforts for the guards-people to contribute to you moment of joy. With a printer and work station it can be possible to immediately down load your image enabling one of the Royal infantry to sign it in person for you.

In an unstable world, and one which currently provides worries on numerous levels, I really hope we are able to find a route to global peace, and that our fascination with Royal tradition could be used as a way to re-focus from conflict to positive togetherness, and put a little smile on faces around the world.

 Nick Crosbie AirClad Founder + Creative Director

To find out more about design commissions or AirClad SP, please contact Nick directly on nick@inflate.co.uk