Historic Hendon - RAF Museum knowledge transfer collaboration

The Historic Hendon Graphic novel project is the result of a two-year long collaboration between Middlesex's Illustration BA and the RAF Museum. Funded by the Heritage Lottery fund the outcome is a series of 9 online graphic novels (plus landing page) which retelling the history of the Hendon site through dynamic layouts and incorporating GIF animation. All BA students were invited to ‘pitch’ for the project by illustrating 2 double page spreads of the same story- from these the best 10 submissions were chosen jointly with the team from the RAF. The selected students from across all three years were then each given a different story overview to interpret, fully utilising the web format format and in a way that made them relevant to today’s audience whilst maintaining historical accuracy. The Project was Art Directed by illustration programme leader, Nancy Slonims with assistance by GAA Alex Moore (who also illustrated one of the stories.) Web design was provided by Middlesex graduate Fred Campbell. As well as providing a chronilogical timeline of the site's development and usage the project also touches on social issues- For example, the story of young women in 1919 loosing their important wartime jobs as men return from the front. There’s a story about WAAF stationed at the base in 1943 and another about young men invalided out of the RAF re-applying for flying jobs at the base in 1946. The RAF museum received lottery funding as part of a very large regeneration project and our project was identified as an important part of the outreach programme