One Christmas, I was given a gift of a small quiz. It was packaged inside a large matchbox that was designed to appear as though it was from the early 20th Century. I wondered where the designers sourced their inspiration for the design of these old matchboxes. Thinking about ephemera, I reminded myself that the Centre for Ephemera Studies at the University of Reading houses the largest collection of ephemera in the world. This initiated the idea of creating a book on ephemera for my self-directed project as a source of inspiration for students.