Careless Talk Costs Lives
Ministry of Information (UK)1940
Careless Talk Costs Lives is a 1940 poster series (eight designs, colour lithograph) for Ministry of Information.
Why it works
When the Ministry of Information set out to stop wartime gossip, the Punch cartoonist Cyril Kenneth Bird, who signed himself Fougasse, convinced officials that a joke would work better than a warning. His eight posters, issued in February 1940, show ordinary Britons chatting while Hitler and Göring eavesdrop from improbable places; in one, two women gossip on a bus with two Nazi leaders sitting in the seat behind them. Each cartoon sits in a wide white margin inside a thin red border, above the same line: "Careless talk costs lives". The Victoria and Albert Museum records that Fougasse gave his services free and believed a shared joke could persuade without the resentment that preaching provokes. Poster House cites cabinet minutes from March 1940 recording 734,200 of his posters in circulation, the most popular pictorial designs, with a reprint of 435,200 already ordered, and the V&A notes they were even reproduced on textiles. It is studied as the classic demonstration that humour can carry a serious public-information message.
Techniques
- Humour Cartoon Nazi leaders eavesdropping on ordinary gossipers turn a security warning into a shared joke that persuades without preaching.
- Fear appeal Beneath the joke, the blunt claim that careless talk costs lives reminds readers what is at stake if they chatter.
Sources · 4
Updated
