
"Keep Calm and Carry On": The Story of the Iconic World War II Poster - gruseom
http://www.openculture.com/2012/03/keep_calm_and_carry_on_the_story_of_the_iconic_world_war_ii_poster.html
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zbyszek
Very odd to see this here; my mother works in that bookshop. I remember her
telling me how the phones were constantly ringing for the whole week after
that first ad was put in the paper, with everybody wanting that damn poster
and nobody interested in any books at all.

It's a great place as well, with all the old railway station trappings around
(there's even more in the publicly inaccessible bits at the back) and worth a
visit (modulo disclosure of personal interest etc).

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SeoxyS
As a side project for the office, I spent quite a bit of time making a
letterpress inside-joke parody poster for the chartboost office:

<https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10150768369153169>

I carved the negative for the crown and bottom decoration out of a block of
linoleum [1] (~13h), gathered what little old wood type I could find to print
up our ad targeting algorithm[2] (~6h), cut out masks for the punctuation
because there's no wood type punctuation at that size and printed the whole
thing in by sending each poster 6 times through the press for each part (~7h).
It was a fun project.

Yes, I'm a nerd, and I get bored.

[1]: Here's what the carved block looks like:
<https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10150756454243169>

[2]: Not really, we'd be a pretty poor ad network if that was it.

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thristian
The video claims the poster was kept in reserve for "times of crisis or
invasion"; I've also heard that they were specifically intended to be deployed
if the Nazi invasion was successful, as a euphemism for "please submit to the
Nazis for the moment, we'll negotiate with them on your behalf as soon as
we're able" gesture.

Does anyone have any harder evidence either way?

~~~
arien
No hard evidence, I remember reading about it when I moved to the UK.

To me it simply means: in times of stress/danger, don't panic, don't lose your
focus. I find it very inspirational. There's almost always a solution to our
problems, but it's harder to find if we're not in the right state of mind.

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lifeisstillgood
The wikipedia Page (<http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keep_Calm_and_Carry_On>)
has some interesting links. I am amazed this is genuine - I had thought it was
faux antique too. Sometimes things can be too good and true it seems

edit: Bit of a rewrite, added link

~~~
yread
_In August 2011, it was reported that a UK based company called "Keep Calm and
Carry On Ltd" had registered the slogan as a community trade mark in the EU,
after failing to trademark the slogan in the United Kingdom. They issued a
take-down request against a seller of Keep Calm and Carry On products. ... The
company is now trying to trademark globally in the United States and Canada._

What went through their heads? "Oh I've seen this cool poster in a couple of
places, let's trademark it and make some money on something I haven't even
created."

~~~
officemonkey
You now understand the current practice of intellectual property law.

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mattvot
I'm just going to take the opportunity to promote my social networking
experiment, <http://keepcalmand.com/>

So far it's on track for exponential traffic growth, which is exciting. All
traffic either comes from facebook sharing or google.

~~~
estel
It looks good, but it would be much better if you used the right font for the
text.

~~~
mattvot
Yeh, when I've got the time I'll put a similar font on. It does have the
correct font for the wallpapers though

~~~
prestonbriggs
Gill Sans was my guess, but looking at the R, I'm certainly wrong.

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c1sc0
I'm probably reading too much into it, but to me, "Keep Calm and Carry On"
resonates very well with entrepreneurial spirit. A great reminder that even in
defeat there is no need for drama: keep calm, carry on (& create something
new!)

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Wicher
Thanks. Since I first saw these posters I have been wondering whether they
were faux-antiques.

Much parodied, indeed:
[http://www.allposters.com/gallery.asp?cat=141240&c=c&...](http://www.allposters.com/gallery.asp?cat=141240&c=c&title=Keep-
Calm-and-Carry-On-Spoofs-
Posters&cid=F3A23A44E10645C2B684672E71EB69A9&isAjax=true&_=1332485086843&startat=/GetThumb.asp&page=2&Search=141240)

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joejohnson
I always thought the slogan sounded faintly Orwellian.

~~~
arethuza
The role of propaganda was something that Orwell was interested in:

"propaganda in some form or other lurks in every book, that every work of art
has a meaning and a purpose — a political, social and religious purpose — that
our aesthetic judgements are always coloured by our prejudices and beliefs"

<http://orwell.ru/library/articles/frontiers/english/e_front>

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jberryman
Wow, I didn't realize this was just (re-)discovered in 2000. Another riff on
the slogan: knitting store by my house has a little sign in the window that
reads "Keep Calm and Carry Yarn"

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Lockyy
As a personal note, I'm kind of getting sick of it. There is some variation of
it in almost every store near me and it just grinds my gears to see it
overused so much.

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pm90
I could have sworn that I had read something about this poster just a few
days/weeks ago.

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ajaymehta
That video (while great) is something right out of a Wes Anderson movie.

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ChrisArchitect
Not new, not original youtube or producer site. This really needed to be HN'd?

