No EU!


No EU Symbol No sooner do you put one Evil Empire behind you than another begins to sprout—in Brussels! Don't they get it? Just when other railroad-era continental-scale empires are discovering how woefully maladapted centralised administration, one size fits all regulation, and discredited dirigiste dreams of “the one best way” are to the information age, the anti-democratic elitist eurocrats are constructing their own anachronistic claptrap empire at the expense of the natural rights, individual liberty, local autonomy, and cultural diversity which made Europe the wellspring of Western civilisation.

If you're lucky enough to be outside the Union, thank your lucky stars and proudly display this symbol to ward off those twelve most unlucky stars from your flagpole. If you're inside, say “enough is enough” with this No EU symbol. You can download the symbol as an image file in a variety of resolutions, as a scalable PostScript definition, or you can purchase the symbol emblazoned upon a bewildering variety of merchandise.

Downloading Image Files

The No EU image is available for downloading in a variety of resolutions, ranging from small images ideal for adorning Web pages (as long as you don't mind them attracting the occasional bullet hole), through intermediate images suitable for screen backgrounds, to hideously high resolution (albeit in files of modest size) for pre-press applications. The links below give the file name, width, height, and file size in kilobytes of each of the available images. You can preview the images in a browser window by clicking the link, or save an image to your computer by right-clicking (or however you pop up the link disposition menu on your computer and browser) and selecting “Save Image As…” or the equivalent to download the image to a local file. The last link in the list is to a Zipped archive containing all of the different resolution images.

All images are in Portable Network Graphics (PNG) format, and are interlaced to download incrementally when included in Web pages.

PostScript Page Description

The No EU symbol is defined in the PostScript page definition language, which permits it, when output to a PostScript compatible device, to be rendered with all the resolution the device permits. If you have such a device, or use a publication system which supports inclusion of PostScript illustrations, you can dispense with the images and work directly with the PostScript definition. The link below downloads a Zipped archive containing both a stand-alone PostScript page definition and an Encapsulated PostScript image suitable for inclusion in other documents. Please see the README file in the archive for details of its contents.

I Want It All NOW!

Use the link below to download everything related to the No EU symbol. Not only do you get all the different resolution images and the PostScript source code, this archive also includes the tools (mostly Perl programs) used to produce the images from the PostScript. These tools rely heavily on current versions of Ghostscript and the Netpbm image processing toolkit; unless you have that software installed on your machine, the tools will do you little good.

Dexter or Sinister?

Curiously, there doesn't appear to be a standard for which way the bar runs (top left to bottom right or top right to bottom left) in interdiction signs.

Bar sinister logo
bar sinister
Bar dexter logo
bar dexter

In European road signs, a red bar running from top left to bottom right like the one shown at the right is the most common, with a series of grey bars which look like a tire tread running in the opposite sense indicating the end of a restricted zone. (An “end deer crossing” sign done that way would be delightful, but I've never seen one.) In other signs: no smoking signs in offices or no skateboard signs in shopping malls for example, you see the red bar used about equally in each direction. In heraldry, a bar running from top right to bottom left like the one in the image at the left is referred to as a “bar sinister” (from the Latin word for “left”), and denotes illegitimacy. In preparing these images, that seemed an appropriate choice to express disapprobation of the bastards in Brussels. Still, if you prefer the bar running the other way: “bar dexter”—top left to bottom right—it's easy enough to accomplish. To transform an image from bar sinister to bar dexter, simply load it into your image processing program and perform a “flip left and right” or “mirror image” operation, which reverses the bar while leaving the balance of the image, which is horizontally nonchiral, unchanged. To reverse the bar in the PostScript definitions, edit the PostScript file and change the “Angle of the bar” near the bottom of the file from 45 to −45.

No entry logo
Do Not Enter

European road signs use a red ring with no bar surrounding a symbol denoting the prohibited item for “No entry”—for example, forbidding bicycles from motorways. Such a graphic is metaphorically applicable in countries at risk of joining the European Union, albeit a bit more obscure. You can create such a symbol by setting the angle in the PostScript file to −999 which will suppress the bar, as in the symbol to the right. In this symbol, I've also widened the circle (Width of circle 55) and shrunk the flag (Width of flag 0.62) to approximate the proportions found on such signs.

Merchandising!

Play sound
LONE STARR: But, Yogurt, what is this place? What is it that you do here?

YOGURT: Merchandising.

BARF: Merchandising? What's that?

YOGURT: Merchandising. Come. I'll show you. Open up this door. Ha, ha, ha, come. Walk this way. Take a look. We put the picture's name on everything. Merchandising. Merchandising…where the real money from the movie is made. Spaceballs—the T-shirt, Spaceballs—the Coloring Book, Spaceballs—the Lunch box, Spaceballs—the Breakfast Cereal, Spaceballs—the Flame Thrower.

—   Spaceballs

In association with CaféPress.com, a collection of No EU merchandise is available. Click on an item to view it in the No EU Emporium, or click the link below the images to see all available merchandise (including some items not shown here). All of these items are offered at cost—you pay only the CaféPress base price—we don't make a centime from sales of these items.

No EU Country Sticker   No EU Mug   No EU Keychain Tag   No EU Wall Clock   No EU Mouse Pad   No EU Tile Coaster   No EU Flying Disc   No EU Book Bag   No EU Diplomatic Pouch

All No EU Merchandise

Disclaimer and Copying

The author of this document accepts no responsibility for the consequences should you publicly display this image. The image definition and all derivative works are in the public domain.