In 1939, with war against Germany looming, the Government designed three posters to steady the public's resolve and maintain morale. The simple five-word message is the very model of British restraint and stiff upper lip. Now the message has taken on a new lease of life in our troubled peacetime. Millions of copies of the "Keep Calm and Carry On" poster were printed on the eve of World War II, but never displayed. Read the original article.The greatest motivation poster ever conceived? This article was originally published on The Conversation. Henry Irving is Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the School of Advanced Study, University of London, and receives funding from the Arts and Humanities Research Council. So “Keep Calm and Carry On” is as much, if not more, a part of our history as it is of theirs. They would perhaps take comfort from the fact that effective public relations owes much to timing. One cannot help but wonder what those who made this decision would make of the poster’s recent commercialisation. The Treasury was adamant that the public would “resent having crammed down their throats at every turn”. So it’s something of an irony that this decision was influenced by a belief that the phrase was “too commonplace to be inspiring” and official fears that “it may even annoy people that we should seem to doubt the steadiness of their nerves”. It’s now clear that the poster was the result of a compromise designed to save money for the Exchequer, and that the decision to keep the poster “in reserve” was only taken after the war had begun. It’s shown that the early history of “Keep Calm and Carry On” is particularly intriguing, as it doesn’t quite confirm the settled notions and assumptions of our time. It was the very fact that the poster was hidden until 2001 that allowed it to go viral.Ī four-year research project on the Ministry of Information being undertaken by the University of London’s Institute of English Studies and King’s College London is shedding new light on the previously hidden parts of the poster’s history. It’s hard to imagine such that rapid commercialisation could have taken hold in the pre-internet age. Another reason might be to do with its message of sober restraint, which chimes with expectations about the history of World War II and was appropriated by many commentators during the recent economic downturn.Īnd then fundamental to this are the technological advances that have made the slogan’s reproduction and manipulation so easy. The timeless nature of the stylistic and predominantly textual design goes some way towards explaining this. So here we have a poster that was not even used for its original purpose during the war yet has seen mass popularity upon its rediscovery. This even led to a series of legal battles over copyright during 2011-13 (with UK courts concluding that the design was covered by Crown Copyright rules and was now firmly in the public domain). Other companies followed suit and versions of the “Keep Calm” message were soon being attached to a bewildering array of products. The Manleys decided to display the poster it in their shop and began to sell reproductions in 2001. It was found in 2000 within a box of books bought at auction by Stuart and Mary Manley, the owners of a second hand book shop in Alnwick, Northumberland. This would all change when a dusty copy of the “Keep Calm” poster was re-discovered at the turn of the 21st century. Science and Technical Research and Development.Infrastructure Management - Transport, Utilities.Information Services, Statistics, Records, Archives.Information and Communications Technology.HR, Training and Organisational Development.Health - Medical and Nursing Management.Facility / Grounds Management and Maintenance.
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