Co-operation or Barbarism

We commissioned award winning illustrator and comic artist Tom Humberstone to create this poster image – part of a toolkit of materials we’ve designed to help celebrate the 2012 UN International Year of Co-operatives. You can order a free toolkit – which includes posters, stickers, leaflets and a talking points Z-card.

Tom’s picture is a reinterpretation of the classic image below, from the National Co-operative Archive. It’s the front cover of the November 1943 issue of Wheatsheaf, Co-operative Wholesale Society’s magazine. Published at a time when co-operation and working together kept Britain alive, it has became classic image of the movement from its C20th heyday. In the present era of financial, social and ecological crisis and conflict, co-operatives are enjoying a renaissance, because they play a key role in building a better world by giving people an equal say and share in the wealth they create.

The new poster is 340mm x 480mm and litho printed on 150gsm Revive 100 Uncoated paper, made by Tullis Russell Papermakers for Robert Horne, with Bio vegetable oil based inks. Production and printing were carried out under Calverts ISO14001 environmental management system.