keep calm and carry on

I went to a dinner with the UK Marketing Society last night. They nicely invite me to some of their events as a sort of cartoonist-in-residence (I draw their Christmas cards and send them cartoons in their magazine).

Anyway, the dinner was held in a massive room with more than 1,200 marketers from all types of marketing organizations in the UK.  It's kind of a somber time for marketers to get together, but the tone was about finding opportunities in the midst of it all.

The president closed his opening toast by quoting this brilliant WWII-era propaganda poster (all the more fitting since the dinner included a personalized video address from Prince Charles).

I've started to see a resurgence in war propaganda posters like this one.  The latest howies catalog features one on its back cover.

Comments

[culturalelite]

There's an interesting story behind this poster, The couple that own one of Britain's largest 2nd hand bookstores in the north of England are the one's who first came across the poster and started to print it... read the story at the link below.

http://www.barterbooks.co.uk/keepcalm.php

However it's the guy who owns keepcalmandcarryon.com (and I assume yesnomaybe) who take most of the credit for it. Barterbooks is where they first acquired the poster. Admittedly the guys saw the potential in the iconic imagery and new how to capitalise on it... and of course the poster is copyright free and in the public domain, but still it's his lack of recognition of the discoverer's of the poster that annoys me.

If anyone wants to purchase one some 'Keep Calm and Carry On' stuff I suggest you do it from the the true home of the iconic found phrase.. Barter Books, Alnwick, Northumberland. http://www.barterbooks.co.uk