Although thousands were produced only a handful ever saw the light of day and they were completely forgotten until a poster was discovered in a box of books at a second hand book store called “Barter Books”. The poster was held in reserve for use only the time of such an extreme crisis and was never used. The original poster would have been issued as a means of allaying public fear had Britain been invaded. PRO TIP: The Keep Calm font in Canva is a copyrighted font that is not intended for public use. The regular version of the font is perfect for body text or small details. The bold version of the font is ideal for making headlines or adding emphasis to important text. This print of Keep Calm and Carry On is a high quality re-print of the British poster designed but never used during World War 2. The Keep Calm font is available in both regular and bold versions. We loved this design but were caught out a little bit by the deluge of re-mixes and tributes to the original poster so we are discounting to sell the left over prints that we still have on hand. In the exact size of the original poster, this print of “Keep Calm & Carry On” was printed by the actual UK bookstore that re-discovered this classic 20th century design and was imported into NZ back before the Keep Calm and Carry On poster was well known. WakefieldĪrt Print Print size in millimetres: 595 x 420 Early that year, the BBC’s Antiques Roadshow discovered 15 more originals of the rare wartime posters. Lookups for keep calm and carry on spiked in 2012, according to Google Trends. And, thanks to enterprising designers, one can flaunt their preferred calm-keeping on everything from coffee mugs to cell phone cases to throw pillows. Today, one can keep calm and do whatever it may be that gives one special pleasure, pride, or a sense of community and identity: Keep Calm and Knit On, Keep Calm and Watch Stars, Keep Calm and Go Buckeyes. Yet more went full meta: Change Words and Be Hilarious or Meme Meme and Memey Meme. Others made clever puns: Keep Calm and Carrion. Some flipped the message: Now Panic and Freak Out. In the early 2010s, the keep calm and carry on meme became so widespread that it spawned clever parodies. One can Keep Calm and Hug a Tree or Keep Calm and Hug a Texan. Variations typically follow the template Keep Calm and X: Keep Calm and Drink Tea or Drink Beer, swapping out the crown icon for a teacup or pint glass. Everyone from crafters to tweeters have riffed on the slogan. Since then, keep calm and carry on exploded as a meme. Social psychologist Alain Samson observed for Henley that “he words are also particularly positive, reassuring, in a period of uncertainty, anxiety, even perhaps of cynicism.” The poster skyrocketed in popularity after the 2008 recession, explained Foreign Affairs Correspondent Jon Henley in 2009 for The Guardian. Patrons fell in love with it, and the booksellers printed tens of thousands of copies over the decade. His wife and co-owner, Mary, framed and displayed the poster. The Keep Calm and Carry On poster languished in number and obscurity until Stuart Manley discovered a copy in 2000 tucked away in a box of old books for his bookshop, Barter Books, in Alnwick, England. It never did display the posters, and most were recycled in 1940 during a wartime paper shortage. The British government printed nearly 2.5 million copies, reserving them to boost morale in case of a particularly bad German bombing. The other two posters featured equally comforting slogans: Your Courage, Your Cheerfulness, Your Resolution Will Bring Us Victory and Freedom is in Peril Defend it with all Your Might. Who, exactly, coined the slogan is unclear. The third, and now iconic, poster flashed Keep Calm and Carry On in white, capital letters underneath an image of a crown on a bright, grabbingly red background. The basic verb phrase carry on means “to continue” doing something, but here, it specifically means “to persevere” and is often associated a British “stiff upper lip.”Īccording the UK’s official History of Government blog, the British Ministry of Information developed a series of three posters in 1939 to rally and reassure its populace as World War II ramped up.
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