Keep Calm and Carry On Update

So, what’s been going on in the world of Keep Calm and Carry On, whilst we’ve been enjoying the halcyon days of British summer (and with all those tales of the recession coming to an end, has the popularity of the slogan taken a downturn?)

• Troops On Tour order the t-shirts
• A casting call for a production entitled “Keep Calm and Carry On” (deadline 28th September)
• Keep Calm and Sew Stuff (machine design) (made same mistake as me!)
• Vera Lynn quotes the poster, as her album hits No.1, decades after she recorded it.
• Card-carrying University of Illinois President B. Joseph White
• Motivational Slogans/World-War-II, hand-in-hand
• Lord Paul Myners (City Minister)
• In diamante!
• Necklaces
• Wayne Rooney listening to the Stereophonics “Keep Calm and Carry On” album (loves it, apparently)
• A reader comments that this converted church is like Barter Books…
• Stereophonics : Live (Listen to a track from their album)
• Keep Calm and Carry On Collecting (Nazi Relics)
• Keep Calm and Smell the Roses
• Keep Calm and Carry On Craze
• San Franciscans love it?
• Still saving from ‘freak out’ in the recession, but apparently also available as a pepper spray!
• Critique of the “police poster” series.
• Clutch Bag
• For Reading F.C.
• Derren Brown “remain calm”, made others think of KCCO!
• Effortless Anthropologie remembers it as a 2007 design issue…
• 1940s weekend, Norfolk
• Submitted to the “Snowclone” database (What’s a snowclone?)
• Remember the slogan when reading health articles!
• Advising expats from the US, living in the UK
• Graffitied onto a train
• An insult to those with depression
• ‘Making art and ignoring the dishes‘ (what a great slogan in its own right!)

David Langdon (b.1914)

Born in London, David Langdon studied at the London School of Economics. From 1937 he was a regular contributor to Punch and from 1948 a cartoonist for Mirror Group newspapers. His work has also appeared in Radio Times and Paris Match, and he illustrated a number of humorous books. Langdon’s work appeared on a number of advertising campaigns but the wartime Billy Brown character is probably the best remembered. Langdon was a member of the London Sketch Club in the 1940s.

Information taken from: London Transport Museum Database, February 2000, Farman, J., ‘galleryonthegreen.co.uk’,http://www.galleryonthegreen.co.uk/mainfiles/sketch/history.htm, accessed October 03 2003

“David Langdon, who was born in London in 1914, probably had more cartoons published in “Punch” than any other single contributor, drawing at least 5000 cartoons for that magazine alone over a period of 55 years (1937-92), thereby also making him one of the longest-serving artists ever. His work has appeared widely in Britain and the USA and is notable for its economical, deceptively simple style. As one commentator has put it, Langdon’s world is “peopled by quaint souls who wear a continual look of surprise, who are obviously trying very hard to do their various jobs seriously – and failing. For they all prove themselves to be unconscious comedians”. He also claims to have been the first to introduce “open mouth” into humorous art, has written and illustrated numerous books and contributed to a great many well-known advertising campaigns. David Langdon was awarded an OBE for his work in 1988 and received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Cartoon Art Trust in 2001. This book brings together nearly 200 of his finest drawings from 1937 to 2002.” (Amazon)

See also:

• David Langdon, British Cartoon Archive, University of Kent
• David Langdon, London Transport Museum

Original post.

Nicholas Clerihew Bentley (b.1907; d.1978)

Born in Highgate, London, Nicholas Bentley was the son of E C Bentley the novelist and writer for the Daily Telegraph. He studied at University College School in London. He worked as a freelance journalist, author and humorous illustrator. During World War Two Bentley was Deputy Director of the Home Intelligence Unit and editor of publications for the Ministry of Information.

He became a distinguished satirical artist and illustrator, having trained at Heatherley’s School of Art, where Evelyn Waugh was a fellow-student. After unsuccessfully trying for a film career, he joined the advertising department of Shell for three years under Jack Beddington, where his colleagues were Rex Whistler, Peter Quennell, Edward Ardizzone, and John Betjeman. They, together with Bentley, were responsible for producing the Shell Guides, highly regarded in their day, and later collectors’ items. He drew cartoons for the Daily Mail from 1958 to 1962.

Of the three men who had most influenced him, his father-in-law Hastings ‘was the foremost, the other two being Jack Beddington of Shell, and Stephen (later Lord) Taylor, under whom he worked in the home intelligence department of the Ministry of Information in World War II. ‘Social historians of the middle decades of the twentieth century will find Bentley’s drawings invaluable, conveying, as they do, quietly and accurately the times in which he lived and the people with whom he associated’.

Information taken from: ‘Nicolas C. Bently’, Poster Database, London Transport Museum; Muggeridge, M., ‘Bentley, Nicolas Clerihew’, National Biography, 1995. (Taken from the IHR Database.)

Related texts: Bentley, N. A Version of the Truth, 1960

See original post.

How You Spend Your Days…

The theme of Greenbelt was “Standing in the Long Now“, which was expressed in a number of different ways, including in art.

I met Mark Fletcher at the Christianity in the Digital Space conference, and was pleased to see this set of posters his visitors produced at Greenbelt, along the theme of Keep Calm and Carry On.

Now, Mark, what I want to know, was that inspired by me wearing my t-shirt at the conference? It certainly makes a statement!

Telegraph: Posters

Seventy years after the radio announcement that informed the nation that Britain was at war, Imperial War Museum London is mounting Outbreak 1939, a new special exhibition, which will explore the build-up to and preparations for war, from August 20. Terry Charman, senior Imperial War Museum Historian, describes some of the iconic posters from 1939.

Men at Work

Read more conference information.

Keep Calm inspired CSS-Theme

I came across this CSS file recently, and am hoping it works for WordPress, as I’d like to use it for this blog/site.

This theme has been working well for some time, but I am getting declining numbers visting my website as I get increasing numbers visiting my blog, so as and when time allows, expect to move the web content across to here, and also transfer the site hosting to the domain http://www.ww2poster.co.uk, although finding the time means this probably won’t be immediate!

Download can be found at: http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2009/07/08/free-typographic-xhtmlcss-layouts-for-your-designs/

Austerity Era Cushions

Heraldic Needlepoint’s Austerity Era cushion designs are all taken from posters issued by various departments of the British Government during previous periods of austerity (stylistically, the last 3 are First World War, the remainder are Second World War)

1. Dig for Victory
2. Dig on for Victory
3. Dig for Plenty
4. Make Do and Mend
5. Make Do and Mend (Mrs Sew-and-Sew)
6. Go Through Your Wardrobe
7. Freedom is in Peril: Defend it with all your might
8. Keep Calm and Carry On
9. Save Kitchen Scraps to Feed the Hens
10. Save Kitchen Waste to Feed the Pigs
11. We Want Your Kitchen Waste
12. Don’t Take Alcoholic Drinks
13. To Dress Extravagently in Wartime
14. Rally Round the Flag: Every Fit Man Wanted

Please note: These images are reproduced by courtesy of The National Archives and The Imperial War Museum who own the reproduction rights and these images may not be reproduced without their permission.

The Austerity Era cushions cost £ 34.99 plus postage
Alerted by this media release.

Men at War: Masculinities, Identities and Cultures (10-11 September 2009)

Currently preparing for the conference: Men at War: Masculinities, Identities and Cultures, Looking forward to presenting an image-laden paper! Gender theory is not exactly my field, but I have found it interesting dablling, and looking for ways to apply my other knowledge. Meantime, early start to the conference, and I’m one of the first panels… looking forward to meeting new people – and Julie Anderson and Ana Carden-Coyne who I knew from University of Manchester!

An Update on Keep Calm and Carry On

“Big” Stories:

• Supreme Court: Keep Calm and Carry On (not quite sure that’s my style of music!)
• Keep Calm and Carry On on MySpace
• Stereophonics release album.
• Director of Twilight wears T-shirt when shooting gets tough (and now there’s a market capitalising on that – some quite fun commentary though).
• British stiff upper lip has wilted under the hysteria of Swine Flu.
• Makes the front cover of Toronto Life
• ‘Inexplicable celebrities‘
• 5 Design trends that need to stop now
• Independent: Panic
• Make Do and Mend Message for the 21st Century
• Cath Kidston reaping the benefit

Put to Use:

• In Germany (which is always going to be strange if you think about it, as this poster was designed FOR the British in the event of  catastrophes such as a German invasion)
• Turn the poster backwards?
• By Order of the Crown
• Weather Forecasts (if we got them all right, we’d be God)
• Life on an artistic shoestring
• Your Homebased Mom (on her husband losing his job)
• Missing out on a University place? What else to do.
• Budgeting for Student Life
• The Rhode Less Travelled
• Keep Calm… when your web host pulls the plug
• Fascinated by the history of KCCO
• Latest KCCO take-offs
• British Attitude: growth in antiseptic wipes
• Slogan keeps a family sane.
• Fits the colour scheme!
• Wall art – internal, rather than in the public space!
• Hung around a store.
• Scalia Regia
• Dealing with Death for a Living
• Selfridges: Carpet
• Keeping the attitude up
• Swine Flu
• Um, no, it wasn’t “posted everywhere“
• Interior Decor
• Keep Spending and Stay in Debt
• Keep Calm at all times