Christmas Keep Calm and Carry On Style?!

I’m not sure that I’m bothering with Christmas Cards this year (I usually do an e-card, and then a handful of cards for people who are not online/who I won’t see… otherwise where do you stop with the writing of cards – it just goes crazy). Christmas is about more than cards, food, etc. (30 seconds to explain what I believe), but I can recognise Christmas for many in these cards! Me… this Christmas I’ll be cooking dinner for many people in a hotel in Lauterbrunnen… in return I should get to meet some interesting people… and a day on the slopes! Want to buy these cards from Etsy?

Keep Calm and Carry On: Roundup

• Keep Calm and Larry On
• Inspiring the book trade
• Prince Charles admits that he has one in his office
• Ben Bradshaw, Culture Secretary (oh, have we mentioned that he has one in his office?)
• Freedom is in Peril: Culture & Freedom blog
• Keep Calm and Carry On (if it was produced now for Queen Elizabeth II) See image to the right.
• Necklace
• Complaining about student apartments
• Is it beyond cool?
• What art do you have in your house? Do you have a number of positive slogans?
• 1940s style HP poster.

Stereophonics: Keep Calm and Carry On

“Which brings us to Keep Calm and Carry On. Named after World War Two posters that seeped back into the public consciousness at the peak of the recession, it’s a title seemingly designed to provoke critics into making obvious remarks about them calmly plodding along and getting on with the business of selling out arenas.” Read full review.

• Purchase regular album.
• Purchase deluxe edition

The album is officially released tomorrow, Monday 16th November!

Other Sightings of Keep Calm and Carry On?

• Internotes (is this just taken from Wikipedia?!)
• Interesting re:design!
• Kid’s perspective.
• Ben Bradshaw, Culture Secretary has a copy

Minor British Institutions: Keep Calm and Carry On

“Coughs and Sneezes Spread Diseases”; “Dig for Victory”; “Keep Mum”. All still famous. But it is odd that the most currently ubiquitous of the Second World War’s propaganda slogans, “Keep Calm and Carry On”, was never officially adopted.

Some two million copies of it were printed, but they remained in storage throughout the war, presumably because the British stayed, mostly, calm throughout.

A few years ago, one of the old posters was rediscovered by a bookseller from Northumberland, and the rest is (new) history. At least one marketing company has seized on the striking design as a motto for our own troubled times, slapping it on to posters, bags, deckchairs, cufflinks and, most appropriately, mugs for the sort of hot sweet tea the WRVS used to hand out at bomb sites.

The sans-serif typeface and minimalist crown logo are a masterpiece of modernism. Sadly, the patriot who came up with the idea remains anonymous, buried in the tomb of the unknown spin doctor.

Original Article: Independent

How is Keep Calm and Carry On Doing?

So, what’s been happening with Keep Calm and Carry On in the news?

• Christmas Gifts at the Imperial War Museum
• Sterephonics Album: Guardian Review
• Etsy debate as to the origin of the term
• Simon Calder: Predictions for a “Winter of Discontent“
• Humour On Tour
• Duxbury Art Association
• Shop selling posters are “Best of Toronto“
• Random Esquire makes a purchase
• Nostalgia shops are blooming!
• “Keep Calm and Carry Me” Babygro THIS HAS GOT TO BE THE BEST FIND OF THE WEEK!
• Cheryl Cole deals with musical success
• “Over It“
• Khaleej Times (well written, but inaccurate about the posters being up!)
• Brought into the breakfast debate!
• Home decoration (how does that change it’s meaning?); and again
• Affirmations for the iPhone?
• As an inspirational musing?
• Breathe Deep… (subversion); and again
• Spoof Calendars; guy version
• The little book makes a reappearance!
• Keep Calm and Ride On
• Cards to buy (along with every other combination that you can think of on Etsy!)
• Screensaver
• Used by developers
• A cliché?
• Remember when reading healthcare articles!
• Part of an awesome home makeover
• Review of the Left Press
• A daily reminder; Gift tags
• An analysis of the design style.
• Keep Calm and Curry On
• “Fantasy English“

An interesting mix, eh? I have so much information I could add (maybe not specifically on Keep Calm and Carry On, but more generically about posters), but life is kinda getting in the way, so slow and steady it will be!

Take Part and Create Art

Maybe the ‘Keep Calm and Carry On’ phenomenon has passed into being passe – what do we think? I still like it, but then I would, as I’ve been interested in the subject long before it became popular, but have a much wider interest in the subject in general, and look forward to one day publishing my book before someone else pinches everything I wrote in my PhD (which is in a number of libraries, including the British Library), but I have recently come across this collection from ‘Remarks from Sparks‘, and I like them…

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!)

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!

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.