THE team behind the It’s Time campaign have taken the difficult decision to suspend their active work – but will now spend time thinking of the way ahead.
In what is probably a lesson for all the Yes movement, graphic and video artist Stewart Kerr Brown, who has produced graphics for Yes West Lothian for several years and produced all the graphics from the Know Scotland advert campaign on ScotRail trains confirmed that he and the rest of the team were suspending operations.
The group features prominent activists such as Tom Ullathorne, David Hooks, Colin Dunn, Scott Cowper, and Wendy Smith, and last year they carried out an excellent crowdfunding operation which raised money for a poster and billboard campaign featuring Colin Dunn’s work; within 12 hours it had reached its funding target of £4000.
Stewart, 54, from Bathgate, then designed the It’s Time posters and billboards which have been so well received by many in the Yes movement.
He told The National: “The Know Scotland posters were classed as political by ScotRail and removed after a week. There were also complaints about the Wake Up posters done by Colin Dunn which were removed from Greene King pubs – it was absolutely pathetic that people moaned about these posters which were running in only about six pubs in all.
READ MORE: The pro-independence billboards BANNED due to 'political gatekeeping'
“The group then discussed a billboard campaign and we had a brainstorming session, throwing ideas at each other for a couple of hours.
“Out of that I came up with about 18 designs and put it to the group so that people could pick out their favourites. We sent them to Clear Channel, the advertising billboard company, and they rejected them all – I still don’t understand why they barred the Westminster Isn’t Working poster because it was clearly based on the old Conservative poster about Labour Isn’t Working – it was all right for the Tories, but not for Yes groups.
“They also rejected our anti-Trident posters, and I still don’t understand why. But I had more designs, and they accepted, but not the ‘Verminous Scots’ quote from Boris Johnson, which they said would offend folk – that was the whole point.
“I designed the Scotland in Union poster which featured barbed wire around Scotland, and that went up in Bathgate only to be torn down – what were they scared of?”
The state of their poster and billboard campaign at the moment is that it is suspended – not cancelled, just postponed.
Stewart said: “With everything going on at the moment, we had to decide to suspend it. Folk are just trying to get by and survive at this time. We will be doing stuff behind the scenes and thinking what to do for the foreseeable future.”
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