A year after using the Broken Britain billboard to open a debate about who bears responsibility for the state of the country, Elliott Starr is returning to the same format with a different task. The new work, Unbreak Britain Billboard, moves beyond diagnosing British society and attempts to imagine what repairing it might look like.
The Founder and Creative Partner of Belief Studio developed the project with David Johnston, CEO and Executive Creative Director of design studio Accept & Proceed, and Indy Johar, Co-Founder of Dark Matter Labs. The billboard will be installed in Whitechapel during this year’s London Design Festival, taking place from 12 to 20 September.
Their joint work draws on parts of British history that, according to the authors, people are often reluctant to discuss openly, including empire, extraction, exclusion and the consequences of long-standing policy failures. However, the aim is not to repeat the accusations made by the first work, but to redirect the question of responsibility towards what might come next.
Broken Britain Billboard first appeared as an anonymous public statement in Liverpool in September 2025. It emerged amid the cost of living crisis and a visible rise in far-right sentiment, arguing that responsibility for the state of the country should not be attributed to immigrants, but to years of political mismanagement and deliberate misdirection. The message subsequently sparked debate on social media.
“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,” said Starr.
The change in tone is also embedded in the work’s graphic system. The red typewriter text carried over from the original billboard remains visible, while a new layer appears in a blue typeface. The two colours establish a dialogue while transforming St George’s Cross into the Union Jack. One of the billboard’s messages states that Britain “doesn’t have to be a museum of itself,” but can instead be a promise and a society strong enough to face its history.
Johnston considers the Union Jack to be perhaps Britain’s most powerful brand asset, but also a symbol whose meaning is increasingly associated with division and exclusion. He therefore sees Unbreak Britain as an attempt to return the flag to the idea of shared belonging and responsibility for repairing the country.
Indy Johar gives the project a broader historical framework, recalling that different journeys and migrations have shaped the people who live in Britain today. Instead of a single, unchanging image of national identity, the billboard proposes a shared responsibility towards those who will inherit the country.
Unbreak Britain Billboard thus uses a familiar national symbol without attempting to impose a finished meaning upon it. Its communication idea rests on a change of question: following the debate about who broke Britain, attention shifts to who is prepared to participate in repairing it.
