Telegraph Less
A long banner poster shows the words 'Telegraph less' in stencil-style black letters on a torn grey-and-white strip, followed by an equals sign and Morse-like dashes, over brush-painted red. It gives a bare instruction with no stated reason; the tell for the one tag is the unexplained implied good ('less' equals support for the war effort).
Propaganda techniques used in this poster
- Date
- 1939
- Period
- Second World War
- Made by
- General Post Office (GPO); artist Hans Schleger ('Zero'); printed for H.M. Stationery Office by Johnson, Riddle & Co., Ltd., London
- Region
- Western and Central Europe
- Country
- United Kingdom
- Medium
- Poster
- Issuer type
- State
- Regime
- Churchill Government
- Leader
- Winston Churchill
- Audience
- Domestic public
- Purpose
- Mobilize or secure compliance
- Themes
- Home front, Economy and finance
- Event
- World War II
- Leader
- Winston Churchill
- Source
- Identified Openly sourced: the speaker is who they say they are
- Source
- U.S. National Archives and Records Administration, Record Group 44, World War II Foreign Posters, retrieved October 3, 2026
- Rights
- Public domain (UK Crown copyright, 50 years from publication, expired before 1996; no URAA restoration)
General Post Office; artist Hans Schleger ('Zero'); printed for H.M. Stationery Office, c. 1939-1945. US National Archives, World War II Foreign Posters (NAID 44267125).
Text on the object
TELEGRAPH LESS = [Morse-style dashes] ZERO P.R.D. 293. Printed for H.M. Stationery Office by Johnson, Riddle & Co., Ltd., London S.E.16. 51-3446
