Propaganda posters first appeared during WW1 (1914-18) when governments decided it was important to show their engagement with the public, it was also a method of enlisting men and selling war bonds in order to finance the military campaign. It was a time of war and this meant that advertising was used to attract war workers, volunteers and soldiers. One of the most notable posters was in 1914, which was an image of the Minister of War in the England with a steely gaze pointing his finger in an attempt to urge young men to enlist in the army. Every other country in the war then seemed to follow suite and use the exact same propaganda approach. In Germany a Reich soldier, pointing his finger patriotically or an Italian soldier doing the same. …show more content…
Many graphic designers were stricken with guilt after the war and one of the most memorable is the one who created the “I want YOU” poster, namely James Montgomery Flagg, who stated: ’A number of us who were too old or too scared to fight prostituted our talents by making posters inciting a large mob of young men who had never done anything to us to hop over and get shot at. . . We sold the war to youth.’ However at the time it had seemed perfectly logically justified for these men to sell the war to the youth and use their talents to enlist men in a war which was being fought for the people in power. This shows the extent and poisonous seeping of the brainwashing into the public of the people to the extent that even those who were performing the brainwashing, were themselves