Through the Magpie Eye: Weird NSA Posters

20.06.2018

Anyone that’s into a bit of dated graphic design should enjoy these old NSA posters that were recently dug up by the good folks over at Fonts in Use.

The majority of these posters were created in the 60s and 70s, originally intended to motivate and remind personnel of the National Security Agency to keep their work discrete.

Apart from looking and sounding like scrapped James Bond film ideas, this collection is pretty fascinating, as each poster paints a vivid picture of an America under threat of encroaching communism and nuclear Armageddon.

These come off as downright nonsensical in this day and age, but in a time wrought with extreme political and national paranoia, stuff like this was fairly commonplace.

NSA poster: Don't talk yourself to death, in orange lettering above a skull in a spotlight on a tiled floor

NSA poster: That this nation shall have a new birth of freedom, with Under God crossed out and State daubed in orange

NSA poster: Security is everyone's responsibility, in bold yellow lettering over a scatter of cut-out faces

NSA poster: Before you worry about outer space, worry about this space, with an arrow from a pink moon to a filing cabinet

NSA poster: Any way you look at it, security is your responsibility, beside someone in a grey suit doing a headstand

NSA poster: If you would lock a secret from your enemy, first turn the key upon your friend, with a drawn keyhole and key

NSA poster: More than meets the eye, in orange lettering above a close-up of an eagle's white head on black

NSA poster: Security fever, catch it, with a drawing of someone in a white three-piece suit with both arms raised

NSA poster: Give a hoot, don't pollute, with a cartoon owl by a filing drawer stuffed with papers, a newspaper and a cup

NSA poster: Just between you and me, in blue lettering rising from the head of a dark silhouette in a hat with glaring eyes

NSA poster: Don't blow your clearance on drugs, with Mind crossed out, over a headless figure in a suit with hands raised

NSA poster: Make security your thing, in orange lettering on black beside someone posing in sunglasses and white flares

NSA poster: Security is everybody's bag, with Father Christmas beside a red sack full of wrapped presents

NSA poster: Secure all classified material, on a small sign at the end of an orange and brown chequered tunnel

NSA poster: Be a tiger for security in '67, with a tiger-stripe office chair before a filing cabinet marked Closed

NSA poster: Loose talk is for the birds, beside a pink line drawing of a parrot on a branch, on orange

NSA poster: One good turn deserves another, another and another, with orange arrows circling a combination lock dial

NSA poster: Lock before you leave, in white lettering shaped like a footprint on red, a security footnote for 68

NSA poster: It's in the bag, in ornate lettering on an orange paper bag, with the line signed, sealed, secured below

NSA poster: Security for the seventies, in white striped lettering on teal, with Let's get it all together in red below

If you want to have a ganders at the full collection on Fonts in Use, click here.

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