We Asked Toronto to Remix Wartime Posters for the Current Moment — See the Amazing Results
All the signs of support in our city during the pandemic have been truly inspiring. Also, they made me think of the many wartime posters held in our Baldwin Collection of Canadiana in Special Collections. Both today's signs and these vintage posters capture key moments in history.
We turned to the Toronto subreddit (a social media forum) to ask Torontonians to adapt these wartime posters to speak to the new historic moment we're currently in.
Out of 66 remixed posters, we picked 16 to highlight below. To everyone who contributed, thank you!
Click or tap on the images for a larger version.
1.
Original poster (left): Canada Food Board, 1914
Remix poster (right): u/Pringlulz, 2020
2.
Original poster (left): National War Finance Committee, 1943
Remix poster (right): u/anamarg, 2020
3.
Original poster (left): National War Finance Committee, 1941
Remix poster (right): u/Desitos, 2020
4.
Original poster (left): Canadian Patriotic Fund, 1914
Remix poster (right): Heather Scott, 2020
5.
Original poster (left): Victory Loan Dominion Publicity Committee, 1918
Remix poster (right): u/zeekayart, 2020
6.
Original poster (left): Victory Loan Dominion Publicity Committee, 1914
Remix poster (right): u/MedurraObrongata, 2020
7.
Original poster (left): Central Recruiting Committee, 1914
Remix poster (right): Alan Collier (host of Our Science podcast), 2020
8.
Original poster (left): Director of Aircraft Production, 1940
Remix poster (right): Tafelmusik, 2020
9.
Original poster (left): McLaren, 1941
Remix poster (right): u/etc-etc-, 2020
10.
Original poster (left): Royal Newfoundland Regiment, 1918
Remix poster (right): u/StetCW, 2020
11.
Original poster (left): Victory Loan Dominion Publicity Committee, 1918
Remix poster (right): Dionysus (u/psychedDionysus) 2020
12.
Original poster (left): Arthur Keelor, 1914
Remix poster (right): @dusanvf, 2020
13.
Original poster (left): Wartime Information Board, 1945
Remix poster (right): @kristupha, 2020
14.
Original poster (left): Central Recruiting Committee, 1914
Remix poster (right): u/tyrannaceratops, 2020
15.
Original poster (left): Central Recruiting Committee, 1914
Remix poster (right): Amy Kwong / Smitten Kitten, 2020
16.
Original poster (left): Royal Newfoundland Regiment, 1914
Remix poster (right): @dustonmyboots, 2020
Visit our Digital Archive to check out all historical items digitized from our collections. Includes over 100,000 photos from the Toronto Star.
Or read our post, World War II Posters: 5 Things They Told Canadians To Do.
10 thoughts on “We Asked Toronto to Remix Wartime Posters for the Current Moment — See the Amazing Results”
Bravo! I loved this post. Everyone did a great job with their submissions.
Very Cool! Thanks to the creators!
Wow! Great work.
Thank you for this post, David. All of these remixes are so well-done. This really boosts my (previously somewhat low) opinion of Reddit.
What a fun project TPL! Thank you for putting it out there to the community to play with! Stay safe out there everyone!
Wonderful! Are Hi-Res versions available for printing and putting them up on the wall?
Hi Gerhard! Thanks for reaching out. If you follow the links below each pair of posters, you’ll find higher resolution versions of the posters. For the original posters, feel free to print them as they are public domain. For the remixes, it would be best to check with the respective creators.
And as for our highest resolution images of the originals, I do not believe we currently have access to those files during closure — though I will message you if I find out otherwise.
These are great! Can I a share them on social media? We’re a City of Toronto Business Improvement Area, so not making profit on it, but it wouldn’t be a personal account. Thanks!
Hi Laura. Thanks for reaching out! Feel free to use on social media and just link back to this post since it credits each creator 🙂
Considering how the American President has recently taken well deserved flack for insisting his name be put on US relief cheques, it probably isn’t appropriate for TPL to post an image of our Prime Minister personally handing out domestic relief cheques either. As Mr. Trudeau has not demanded any such thing, this only makes the clearly partisan image of his affecting generousity with Canadians’ own money that much more obnoxious coming via a supposedly neutral organization such as TPL. Yuck!