Today, with all legal Covid restrictions coming to an end in England, the nation is navigating a prominent piece of history that will be discussed and documented for centuries to come. In a bid to encourage us to document our own slice of this history, PastBook – a global platform for one-click photo products – have now launched their campaign, ‘Closing the Book on Lockdown’.

Over the lockdown period, the nation pulled together as a collective – just under 70 million adults, children and pets – joined a global community, unified in their experience of banana bread baking, homeschooling, pandemic birthing and Zoom engagement parties. The list of digitised experiences is endless – with data by Media Update revealing that the top trending hashtags surrounding COVID-19 were #StaySafeStayHome, #WorkingFromHome and #TogetherAtHome. Alongside this, the hashtags #BananaBread, #ZoomLearning and #Masks all trended, with over 2 million posts each on Instagram.

Now, unlike the 7,500 images stored within camera phones and iCloud albums, this distinct time deserves a degree of permanence in its preservation. Our very own time capsule, documenting the expressions, backgrounds, colours and moments that define a time like no other.

About the campaign

PastBook is enabling us to document the last 16 months of what has been for some a very harrowing period and for others, a very special time to share extended experiences with our loved ones. By selecting the dates March 2020 – July 19th 2021, the nation can reflect on their personal pandemic experience through PastBook’s free photo book creation service here. PastBook is also encouraging users to share their lockdown experiences, highlights, and most memorable moments of the past year through the hashtag #closingthebook.

Bringing digital records to life

Throughout lockdown, our social media accounts replaced many of the traditional engagements of daily life.
Now, new research from PastBook has revealed:

– 29% of Brits now say their account media account is the best representation they have of their pandemic experience

– Yet 52% of the nation do not own any physical copies of the images captured on these accounts

PastBook creates a physical capsule that we can look back on in years to come, allowing us a way to reflect and share our most unforgettable years in living memory. The platform’s sophisticated technology automatically creates a unique capsule for each user by selecting the highlights of their Instagram, Facebook, Dropbox, Flickr, Picasa, computer, phone or tablet and instantly arranging them into a high-quality photo book.

Wouter Staatsen, CEO of PastBook, discusses the importance of documenting the surrealness of the last 16 months

“Over the last 16 months, the world has experienced a period that will go down in history books. Traditionally, this time would have been documented through written letters, newspapers or printed photographs – yet in today’s digital age, we have all been able to document our pandemic experience through our social media accounts, sharing our highs and lows with long-distance loved ones.

Now, as all restrictions in the UK will be lifted on July 19, PastBook is encouraging the nation to document their own slice of history through our campaign, Closing the Book on Lockdown. Taken from our most precious shared memories on our social media accounts, PastBook create well-curated, stylistic logs of these social accounts and turn them into image-based memoirs – preserved forever. As such, we all have a way to turn our own history into a keepsake that we will cherish forever.”