Montpelier, the home of James Madison, opened The Center for The Constitution to educate our citizenry on the Constitution and its role in public life. Acknowleging that the founding document has no animation, sound effects or virtual connectivity, Sean O’Brien, Executive Director of The Center, challenged us to create some collateral that would bridge the gap in Constitutional knowledge and interest between adults and children.
The facts we had to work with:
• We are facing different issues today than 200+ years ago when the docuement was written.
• The principles of the Constitution are as valid and necessary as they are today.
• The printing press in the hands of Benjamin Franklin and his compatriots was the social media of the day.
• Communication today derives from websites, blogs, cell phones, texts, file sharing and maybe a few more.
As always, the solution came easily, after we found the right question: How do we bring the Constitution to today’s youth in a way that will grab their interest and relate that to the historic roots of the document? Our solution was to take people on a trip through time with a replica of a 18th century broadsheet bulletin on one side and an image of a 21st century blog on the other. Both sides would contain a timeline of significant constitutional events in there respective time frames.
The final piece was created as a four-panel, accordian-folded brochure that opens top to bottom. It had the added function of being made to perch in a brochure rack in the vertical position – a format suitable for distribution anywhere from visitor’s centers to school bulletin boards.
