Matchbook Book: the archive keeping a lost design legacy alight

Q&A with Billy Woods, matchbook archivist

INT: When and why did you start collecting matchbooks?

Billy Woods (BW): My dad began collecting matchbooks in the early 1970s, He filled a series of large glass jars over many years as he returned from work, nights out and weekends away. There were thousands. When he stopped smoking in the late 1990s, he passed the collection on to me — and I continued. I’ve been collecting for around 20 years now.

Discovering the full extent of his collection was incredibly exciting. As I looked through the jars, I realised I could trace some of the best memories of my childhood through those small, printed covers: local restaurants we used to visit, hotels we stayed in, family holidays we went on. All of it captured in miniature form. That immediacy, the way such a modest object could hold so much personal and cultural history was instantly appealing. The matchbooks evoked a deep sense of nostalgia and sentimental memory, while also appealing to me from a design perspective.

INT: How does the collection capture a Britain we no longer know?

BW: Each matchbook is a miniature reflection of everyday life between the 1970s and late 1990s. The collection captures the rhythms and habits of daily life: the cigarettes people smoked, the beer they drank, the neighbourhood tandooris they visited, the holidays they booked and the fuel they put in their cars. They document both national landmarks, royal weddings, major sporting events, and the local and ordinary. Together, these build a portrait of a distinctly British way of life that feels at once familiar and distant.

There is humour as well, sometimes intentional, sometimes not. Some matchbooks feature cocktail recipes, jokes, trivia or small pieces of advice. Others reflect the attitudes of their time through their slogans and illustrations, things that today might seem charming, naive or politically incorrect.

INT: Are there any visual trends and styles you see repeated across the collection? On the flipside, any that really stand out from the crowd?

BW: There’s such a mix across the collection. Many are very simple — a bold block of colour, a recognisable logo and just a few words, sometimes with a small promotion printed inside. They’re direct and instantly legible, not unlike contemporary branding and advertising. That clarity and confidence feels very consistent across cigarette brands, breweries and larger companies in particular.

Others are far busier, trying to do as much as possible within such a small space. Some feature detailed maps of the local area; others print fixture lists for events like the World Cup. I love the idea of someone on the road navigating with the map on the back of a matchbook. They feel practical as well as promotional.

Q&A with Patrick Fry, founder of CentreCentre and designer of Matchbook Book

INT: Why was the book a good fit for CentreCentre? 

Patrick Fry (PF): I had been itching to make another book about ephemera, particularly the kind that isn’t valued highly. In this case matchbooks – not from a romantic period or a charming far-flung location but everyday, mundane, British matchbooks from the likes of Boots or a local curry house. Because of their seemingly ‘uncollectible’ status, these matchbooks would otherwise disappear from view. We may forget just how ubiquitous this particular form of graphic ephemera was. And as such, it fits into CentreCentre’s mission to preserve pockets of design history, however unglamorous. 

INT: How did you go about creating the matchbook cover? 

PF: It’s hard to work with a format like a matchbook without wanting to create some form of a nod to its particular form of paper engineering. We tried a lot of alternatives, from including a strike tab to folding the cover itself over. We ended up creating a bright red gloss sleeve that has the matchbook signature fold and staple, these had to be finished by hand thanks to Gomer Press in Wales. The interior paper has a smokey, aged parchment look, reminiscent of the yellowing uncoated interiors of many of the matchbooks. Overall we wanted to playfully reference the matchbook as a format, while hopefully staying on the right side of gimmicky.