Silicon Playgrounds

It’s about harnessing the interconnectivity of everyone in society. It’s a new way of thinking. Innovation, self-investment, revenue flux, growth, ergo a healthy network. What’s so complicated about that? All the words you just used.

As with Snooper Force, Silicon Playgrounds is another (this time the 2010s coalition) government initiative, doomed to failure. It’s part of pompous buzzword afficionado Stewart Pearson’s larger ‘Networked Nation’ project, invented by twin junior minister dickheads Adam and Fergus and centres around getting kids to build apps at school. Despite Adam and Fergus inventing the thing, its launch is palmed off to apathetic political dinosaur Peter Mannion, who predictably nutses it up, due to knowing next to nothing about modern technology beyond an early Noughties Nokia.

The font in the logo is fairly easily identifiable in the show, though this design does develop some of the other graphics, as they’re not particularly clear. Mostly the tesseract-esque thing. I can’t quite make it out, but I’ve run with it kind of suggesting both circuitry and something you might find in an actual playground. A climbing frame or something. Or, if you went to school in Britain in the latter half of the 20th century, you might remember your PE teachers referring to something only known as ‘the apparatus‘.

The colours are an attempt at something that would appeal to children, yet also not come across as too garish and thus lacking in seriousness. Sort of like a Science Museum or BBC Bitesize vibe. Fun *and* informative. And obviously therefore rubbish and uncool to kids, regardless.

I still don’t really understand what ‘I Call App Britain’ means. So maybe I’m the Peter Mannion in all of this after all.