WW2 Posters & Wartime Propaganda Prints

Loose Lips Sink Ships. Dig for Victory. We Can Do It. You can almost hear the instructions before you finish reading them.

Digitally restored reproductions from £19.99, printed on 200gsm Enhanced Matte Fine Art Paper with pigment inks. Printed locally and shipped from the UK, US and Canada. Supplied unframed.

1944 US WW2 propaganda poster: WANTED FOR MURDER, woman portrait in greyscale, red careless talk tagline, Victor Keppler | The Vintage Poster Archives

These WW2 poster reproductions bring together recruitment, war savings, food, safety and secrecy campaigns. Some use humour; others rely on resolve or a sharp warning. Browse for the image that catches you, then look at what it was asking of the person who first saw it. A garden, a workplace and a casual conversation could all become part of the war effort. The design and the history belong together.

A world of instructions on paper

Second World War posters addressed far more than the battlefield. They asked people to enlist, buy bonds, work carefully, grow food and think before speaking. A designer might have only a few words and one image to make an appeal feel urgent enough to act on.

That concentration gives these prints their visual force. A direct gaze can make a public appeal feel personal. An ordinary household object can stand for national need. A joke can make an instruction memorable, while a threatening shadow changes the mood completely. Comparing campaigns shows how many different emotional routes could lead to the same request for cooperation.

Start with a campaign you recognise

Dig for Victory is a natural starting point for gardening and home front imagery. We Can Do It introduces J. Howard Miller’s workplace design, whose history is more specific than its later fame suggests. The careless talk posters offer another rich group, with warnings that range from restrained to alarming.

For the story behind one familiar image, read the article on We Can Do It and Rosie the Riveter. The Loose Lips Sink Ships article follows a different campaign. Both make useful companions to the prints without turning the collection page into the same history twice.

Choosing a wartime poster reproduction

Think about the message you will see every day, as well as the illustration. A gardening campaign, an industrial safety warning and a recruitment appeal will bring very different associations to a wall. If you are assembling a group for study, choose a clear relationship: one subject across countries, one artist across campaigns, or several different approaches to the same instruction.

For earlier material, explore First World War posters.