F r e e B L M S i g n s . o r g

A repository of printable protest signs and activist posters.

About the Designs

The sign and poster designs on this website are available as multi-page PDF files. These PDFs can be printed out on home printers and taped together into larger signs, suitable for wheatpasting on walls or taping to cardboard for protest signs. Unlike the vibrant, colorful designs on Amplifier.org, these are designed to make economical use of toner & ink cartridges. The goal is cheap, mass home production.

Cheap, Mass Home Production

The posters on this site are created with cheap, mass home production in mind. Many posters have "outline" versions, which can be printed with minimal toner or ink and filled in with sharpie or colorful markers. To save time, we recommend using a large "magnum" sharpie instead of a regular-sized sharpie. Use an index card like painter's tape to ensure you mark straight lines with the sharpie.

These signs are more readable than writing with sharpie on brown cardboard. The white background of paper and black or color marking in neat, bold text make your signs and poster readable from a distance and appear in photos better.

The pages have some overlap with each other to aid aligning them together, and the right and bottom margins of the paper should be cut with scissors or a paper cutter first before fitting and taping them together.

About Wheatpasting

Wheatpaste is an inexpensive glue made from flour and water. Large, pre-printed posters can be wheatpasted onto walls quickly, cheaply, and last for weeks. Wheatpaste can be made at home, and then applied to posters and walls using paint brushes or rollers.

A simple recipe is to add one part flour to one part room-temperature water and mix well with a whisk. Add the mixture to three parts boiling water, and then turn off the heat. The mixture will thicken. Stir with the whisk constantly as the mixture cools for a several minutes. Once it is cool, you can store it in tupperware. It can be used as glue immediately. Refrigerate to avoid having it start to smell.

You can find out how to make and apply wheatpaste in the following links:

Some tips about wheatpasting:

Although some recipes call for adding sugar or other ingredients, wheatpaste can be made from flour and water alone.
To save time when applying the poster to wall, tape the poster's pages together beforehand and transport it rolled up. Don't wheatpaste each page to the wall separately.
Transport the wheatpaste in tupperware or disposable plastic containers.
Wearing painter's clothes (old faded jeans, t-shirt, sneakers) and a reflective vest can prevent harassment from bystanders while you put up the poster.
Use long lengths of tape to attach the pages together into the combined poster. Once wheatpaste is applied, the paper gets heavy and wet and the pages can easily come apart if minimal tape was used.
Use a short ladder or foldable chair to place the poster higher up. Posters reachable from the ground are easily taken down.
For rapid application of wheatpaste to the poster and wall, scoop the wheatpaste out of the portable container with latex/nitrile gloved hands and hand-spread it to the poster or wall. Then smooth out the wheatpaste with a paint brush or roller.
If putting the poster up on plywood boards, use a staple gun to staple the four corners of the poster, where it's most likely to peel first.
Bring additional plastic bags with you to toss used brush, rollers, and gloves into to prevent messes.
Wipe wheatpaste off of ladders or foldable chairs when done. Wheatpaste can begin to smell after a couple days.

Contribute to This Site

Help grow this site's collection with your contributions! We could use the following:

Promoting this site to activist groups and organizers.
300 DPI, high resolution Photoshop or PNG files of signs/posters to create PDFs from.
Support and advisement from those with graphic design or wheatpasting experience.
High-resolution images for posters.
Ideas for slogans, fonts, and designs.
Links to other collections of signs and posters, such as Amplifier.org.