The "Your Courage" poster was commissioned by the British Ministry of Information (MOI) in 1939 as part of a massive domestic morale campaign at the outbreak of World War II. It was the very first design in a planned trio of posters meant to brace the public for the immense hardships of total war. Print shops produced over 800,000 copies in various sizes and colours—predominantly red and blue—and plastered them across the country on billboards, tube stations, and shop windows within days of the declaration of war.
Despite the grand scale of the rollout, the poster quickly became a public relations misfire. British citizens criticized the wording, finding the phrasing "Your courage... will bring us victory" deeply patronising. To many, it felt as though an elite, detached government ("us") was asking the ordinary working class ("your") to do all the heavy lifting while offering very little in return.
Because of this intense backlash and a general feeling that the poster was out of touch, the MOI quickly withdrew the campaign. The government shifted its strategy toward more inclusive, action-oriented messaging that focused on shared sacrifice. Ironically, this public failure is the exact reason its famous sibling poster, "Keep Calm and Carry On," was locked away in a warehouse and never officially distributed during the war
Here we’ve taken this classic sign but added a stylish twist of producing it as a reverse glass sign with mirrored writing on a deep blue background
The "Your Courage" poster was commissioned by the British Ministry of Information (MOI) in 1939 as part of a massive domestic morale campaign at the outbreak of World War II. It was the very first design in a planned trio of posters meant to brace the public for the immense hardships of total war. Print shops produced over 800,000 copies in various sizes and colours—predominantly red and blue—and plastered them across the country on billboards, tube stations, and shop windows within days of the declaration of war.
Despite the grand scale of the rollout, the poster quickly became a public relations misfire. British citizens criticized the wording, finding the phrasing "Your courage... will bring us victory" deeply patronising. To many, it felt as though an elite, detached government ("us") was asking the ordinary working class ("your") to do all the heavy lifting while offering very little in return.
Because of this intense backlash and a general feeling that the poster was out of touch, the MOI quickly withdrew the campaign. The government shifted its strategy toward more inclusive, action-oriented messaging that focused on shared sacrifice. Ironically, this public failure is the exact reason its famous sibling poster, "Keep Calm and Carry On," was locked away in a warehouse and never officially distributed during the war
Here we’ve taken this classic sign but added a stylish twist of producing it as a reverse glass sign with mirrored writing on a deep blue background
