6 ms·

"Keep Calm and Carry On": The Story of the Iconic World War II Poster

108 points by gruseom 15y ago

deleted 15y ago
[deleted]
Wicher 15y ago
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&title=Keep-Calm-and-Carry-On-Spoofs-Posters&cid=F3A23A44E10645C2B684672E71EB69A9&isAjax=true&_=1332485086843&startat=/GetThumb.asp&page=2&Search=141240 http://www.allposters.com/gallery.asp?cat=141240&c=c&#38...
lifeisstillgood 15y ago
The wikipedia Page (http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keep_Calm_and_Carry_On 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 15y ago
  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 15y ago
    You now understand the current practice of intellectual property law.
joejohnson 15y ago
I always thought the slogan sounded faintly Orwellian.
- Corrado 15y ago
  For some reason, this phrase grates on my nerves. Maybe it has Orwellian overtones that trigger something in my subconscious. I don't know what it is but this slogan makes me angry almost beyond rationality. Ironic. P.S. Maybe its the fact that my boss has one of its parodies hanging in his office. :/
- arethuza 15y ago
  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 http://orwell.ru/library/articles/frontiers/english/e_front
- WiseWeasel 15y ago
  To me, it sounds awfully similar to "move along; nothing to see here."
thristian 15y ago
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 15y ago
  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.
- deleted 15y ago
  [deleted]
- jackfoxy 15y ago
  Being as how the poster was commissioned on the eve of WWII, that means before Churchill became PM, it is plausible, but if some bureaucrat was thinking that, he dare not speak it or leave any written record. That's a meme that will probably live on in urban myth.
ajaymehta 15y ago
That video (while great) is something right out of a Wes Anderson movie.
SeoxyS 15y ago
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 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 https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10150756454243169 [2]: Not really, we'd be a pretty poor ad network if that was it.
mattvot 15y ago
I'm just going to take the opportunity to promote my social networking experiment, http://keepcalmand.com/ 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 15y ago
  It looks good, but it would be much better if you used the right font for the text.
  - mattvot 15y ago
    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 15y ago
      Gill Sans was my guess, but looking at the R, I'm certainly wrong.
- icebraining 15y ago
  Thanks for that, I have a new wallpaper! I just have a nitpick: I think it should break the two words into different lines, like the original does. I first thought it was because the word I chose was shorter (I used "WAVE ON", as in Hendrix's If 6 was 9), but it happens with "CARRY ON" too.
  - mattvot 15y ago
    Yeh. I thought that too, but it needs some more general tinkering anyway. I'll get round to it at somepoint
- Tichy 15y ago
  on my screen the background color of the crown is a different red than the rest of the page
c1sc0 15y ago
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!)
zbyszek 15y ago
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).
ChrisArchitect 15y ago
Not new, not original youtube or producer site. This really needed to be HN'd?
jberryman 15y ago
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"
Lockyy 15y ago
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.
pm90 15y ago
I could have sworn that I had read something about this poster just a few days/weeks ago.

108 points by gruseom 15y ago

deleted 15y ago

[deleted]

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&title=Keep-Calm-and-Carry-On-Spoofs-Posters&cid=F3A23A44E10645C2B684672E71EB69A9&isAjax=true&_=1332485086843&startat=/GetThumb.asp&page=2&Search=141240 http://www.allposters.com/gallery.asp?cat=141240&c=c&#38...

lifeisstillgood 15y ago

The wikipedia Page (http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keep_Calm_and_Carry_On 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 15y ago
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 15y ago
  You now understand the current practice of intellectual property law.

joejohnson 15y ago

I always thought the slogan sounded faintly Orwellian.

Corrado 15y ago
For some reason, this phrase grates on my nerves. Maybe it has Orwellian overtones that trigger something in my subconscious. I don't know what it is but this slogan makes me angry almost beyond rationality. Ironic. P.S. Maybe its the fact that my boss has one of its parodies hanging in his office. :/
arethuza 15y ago
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 http://orwell.ru/library/articles/frontiers/english/e_front
WiseWeasel 15y ago
To me, it sounds awfully similar to "move along; nothing to see here."

thristian 15y ago

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 15y ago
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.
deleted 15y ago
[deleted]
jackfoxy 15y ago
Being as how the poster was commissioned on the eve of WWII, that means before Churchill became PM, it is plausible, but if some bureaucrat was thinking that, he dare not speak it or leave any written record. That's a meme that will probably live on in urban myth.

ajaymehta 15y ago

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

SeoxyS 15y ago

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 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 https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10150756454243169 [2]: Not really, we'd be a pretty poor ad network if that was it.

mattvot 15y ago

I'm just going to take the opportunity to promote my social networking experiment, http://keepcalmand.com/ 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 15y ago
It looks good, but it would be much better if you used the right font for the text.
- mattvot 15y ago
  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 15y ago
    Gill Sans was my guess, but looking at the R, I'm certainly wrong.
icebraining 15y ago
Thanks for that, I have a new wallpaper! I just have a nitpick: I think it should break the two words into different lines, like the original does. I first thought it was because the word I chose was shorter (I used "WAVE ON", as in Hendrix's If 6 was 9), but it happens with "CARRY ON" too.
- mattvot 15y ago
  Yeh. I thought that too, but it needs some more general tinkering anyway. I'll get round to it at somepoint
Tichy 15y ago
on my screen the background color of the crown is a different red than the rest of the page

c1sc0 15y ago

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!)

zbyszek 15y ago

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).

ChrisArchitect 15y ago

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

jberryman 15y ago

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"

Lockyy 15y ago

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.

pm90 15y ago

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