Student Living - The Union

The University student’s union bar is the social hub for students on any campus. Always full of students, music playing from a jukebox with drinks and food on offer, it’s the perfect hang-out for those looking for respite from dissertations and projects. The Union at Roehampton University is particularly playful, with paintings of London’s landscape on the walls, pool tables and a chilled atmosphere; it’s often filled with hungry young adults looking for a snack.

The Union offers a simple menu with a surprising amount of choice for such a small kitchen.  However, despite the appetising variety of food on offer, the menu itself looks as if it’s been written by someone studying for their GCSE’s what with the overuse of apostrophes. Grammatical errors aside, the menu design uses a ‘splat’ effect to look as if spillages have been made on it; playing on the messy habits of students and the equally messy environment of the bar what with empty glasses and plates dotted around.

Food such as nachos, pasta and fish and chips are cheap and easy dishes that appeal to the lazy student that can’t be bothered to cook for themselves. More elaborate meals such as roast dinners provide home comforts for the young adults now that they are away from their Mother’s cooking. The writing used for the menu boards themselves are simplistic and child-like, mimicking the living standards of the students reading it as well as continuing the fun and friendly feel. Alcoholic beverages are also offered alongside your roast beef including not your standard glass of Chardonnay or a cheeky pint, but a Bloody Mary or Margarita cocktail…for Sunday lunch. This is University after all.

 

The other way of incorporating alcohol into your lunch  is to choose the option of a burger and a beer. This encourages the binge drinking culture that this generation of students has become accustomed to. A meal…without alcohol?! What a preposterous thought. The typical ‘bar food’ encourages the students to participate in drinking whilst eating. Music plays loudly encouraging a social, laid back environment. The hip hop chip shop turns a simple concept and meal into a themed night out for students (who certainly don't turn down the opportunity to get dressed up and get on down) adding fun and frivolity to an otherwise plain idea whilst making a cultural reference in order to connect the union with its target audience.