New billboard reimagines Britain’s future

The original billboard questioned the causes of the UK’s cost of living crisis and the rise in far-right sentiment.

Elliott Starr, founder and Creative Partner at Belief Studio, has collaborated with Accept & Proceed and Dark Matter Labs on a public artwork that explores Britain’s history and proposes a more hopeful vision for its future. The 48-sheet Unbreak Britain Billboard is appearing in Whitechapel, London, during the London Design Festival.

Starr created the work with David Johnston, CEO and Executive Creative Director of design studio Accept & Proceed, and Indy Johar, co-founder of Dark Matter Labs. The billboard addresses themes including empire, extraction, exclusion and policy failures, building on Starr’s Broken Britain Billboard, which appeared anonymously in Liverpool in September 2025.

Unbreak Britain follows public debate

The original billboard questioned the causes of the UK’s cost of living crisis and the rise in far-right sentiment. Its message challenged the idea that immigrants were responsible for the country’s problems and instead pointed to political mismanagement and misdirection. The work generated discussion across social media.

The sequel shifts from diagnosis towards a vision of how Britain could develop. It retains the red typewriter-style text from the original billboard while introducing a contrasting blue typeface, creating a visual dialogue between the two works.

Billboard presents a different vision for Britain

Elliott Starr, founder and Creative Partner, Belief Studio: “I won’t claim to be an expert in politics. But I know people, and I know the mood of the nation. Last year it was, and still is, in a bad place. Life is hard for a lot of people. When life is hard, and those we trust to lead us point fingers, a lot of people listen, even when the facts don't align.

I wanted the Broken Britain Billboard to be a reality check, and it was. With this latest instalment, we want to offer a little more hope, and inspiration - a vision of a brighter future for us all. One that is within our reach, if we’re willing to change."

The visual treatment also transforms the St. George’s Cross featured in the original into a Union Jack. The new artwork includes statements about Britain's identity, history and collective responsibility, including a call for communities to help shape the country's future.

Accept & Proceed explores national identity

One of the central themes of the billboard is the relationship between national pride and Britain’s history. The work argues that acknowledging the country’s past can coexist with imagining a different future.

David Johnston, CEO and Executive Creative Director, Accept & Proceed: “The Union flag may be Britain’s most powerful brand asset, but its meaning is increasingly being pulled towards division and exclusion. Unbreak Britain is an attempt to pull it back, to reclaim the flag as a symbol of something we share, and a country we all have a hand in repairing. It’s not simply about what the flag means, but what it might make possible.”

Dark Matter Labs focuses on shared responsibility

Indy Johar’s contribution places Britain’s present within a broader history of migration and belonging. His statement traces the multiple journeys that have brought people to the UK and frames the country’s future as a shared responsibility across generations.

Indy Johar, co-founder, Dark Matter Labs: “This piece seeks us to invite an embrace of the reality that everyone has journeyed to this Isle and taken multiple routes to be here—a human journey whose deepest origins lie in East Africa. Along the way, we have made and belonged to many homes and places from Germany to Australia. We arrive in the present carrying those histories and harms and those multiple forms of belonging. But being here also asks something of us to acknowledge those harms and hurts and it asks us to recognise our shared responsibility for creating a greater and better Britain—not only for ourselves, but for the citizens of the future who will inherit this beautiful land and honor the citizens of the past who experienced the hurts.

That shared responsibility is a covenant with those future citizens and past citizens. It is an invitation extended to everyone: to recognise that, however different our journeys have been, each of us has travelled to arrive here. And now that we are here, this is the place whose future we must create, safeguard and honour together”.

www.beliefstudio.co.uk

Follow Marketing Report on LinkedIn