Vintage Poster Archives
Join a Scottish Regiment 1940 | Gilroy WW2 Poster
Join a Scottish Regiment 1940 | Gilroy WW2 Poster
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A kilted soldier in khaki service dress stands in the foreground, arm raised with thumb pointing to the bold navy blue headline above. The teal-and-dark-green tartan kilt, white sporran, red-diamond hose tops and black glengarry are rendered with the clarity and wit that characterises Gilroy's commercial illustration. Behind him a second soldier stands in tartan trews; at the lower left a small tank; at the lower right a mounted Royal Guard on a white horse. Twelve Scottish regiments are listed to the right in measured serif type, from the Royal Scots Greys to the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders.
Designed by John Gilroy (1898–1985) for His Majesty's Stationery Office, printed by Johnson and Co Ltd, London and Middlesbrough, c.1940. Gilroy was already the leading figure in British advertising illustration, responsible for the Guinness animal campaigns that ran from 1930 onwards. During the Second World War he turned the same skills to government communication work, producing recruitment and wartime awareness posters with the same economy of colour and precision of line. The upward gesture of the central figure, the flat saturated ground, the integration of type and image: all are recognisable Gilroy moves applied to a wartime brief.
Reproduced from a restored archival source as a fine art archival print on 200gsm Enhanced Matte Fine Art Paper. The poster sits at the intersection of WW2 British history and the mid-century commercial illustration tradition. It resonates with collectors of wartime graphic design, historians of the Scottish military, and those drawn to Gilroy's wider body of work.
