Hello, June (and a Little Printable Propaganda)

Hi folks -- well, another new month means that it's time for another turn of the Hello Kitty calendar that adorns my cubicle wall:

Compared to previous months (which you can see here: Jan. | Feb. | Mar. | Apr. | May), I went with a slightly wider shot, so you can get a closer look at some of the other items next to the calendar (whose designer, incidentally, decided to go with something of a cowboy theme for June):

• Immediately to the left of the calendar, that thing with the holes is a foam spacer that originally came with someone's fruit-of-the-month package. I think it was apples. I use it as kind of a visual divider.
• That black thing sticking out of the wall is a plastic knife that I use as a hat rack. You can usually find a baseball cap or my phone headset hanging from it.
  
• To the left of that, you can see a bit of printable propaganda that says "Without Its Trade Secrets, a Nation Will Die."
  
  It's from the Office of the National Counterintelligence Executive -- you can see their full list of printable posters and calendars.

Since I'm on the subject of propaganda, that gives me an excuse to share one of my favorite links: If you're interested in more historical examples of propaganda and public information, check out this collection of World War II posters at the Northwestern University Library. They've scanned in over 300 posters, like this one, which is actually kind of relevant today:

Get the Image | Image Information (Northwestern University Library World War II Poster Collection)

If you'd like to use one of the poster images, their copyright notice says that all the poster images are in the public domain and not subject to copyright restriction, though the Library requests that if you use any of the images, that you please credit them.

Because the images are public domain, and since they're so iconic, you may have seen examples floating around of WWII posters modified with messages far beyond their original intent, done by people from all over the political spectrum.

Some are done as parodies; others may be done to shock or to get a political statement across. Neither of which I'm doing here, of course.

Thanks -- Joe

Tags: hello kitty, public domain images, World War II Posters