«Keep Calm and Carry On» was the third in a series of World Ward 2 posters drawn up by the UK Ministry of Information in order to boos the morale of the British people by passing on a message from King George VI. The posters were a stark white text on a red background, with the only image on the poster being the royal crown.
The first two posters, «Your Courage, Your Cheerfulness, Your Resolution will Bring Us Victory» and «Freedom is in Peril», were widely printed and distributed. However, the third poster, which carried the simple message «Keep Calm and Carry On» although printed, was never distributed, as it was intended only if invasion was imminent.
At the end of the war, the posters were collected up and pulped. It is believed that only two original posters out of a print run of over a million survive to this day.
The story would have ended there were it no for Stuart and Mary Manley, who run a bookshop called Baxter Books in Northumberland. In 2000, whilst sorting through a box of old books, they found one of the few surviving original copies of the «Keep Calm and Carry On» poster. They liked it so much that they had the poster framed and placed near the till in their shop.
They soon found that costumers were keen on the poster – even to the point of asking if they could buy it! So, Stuart and Mary started selling and printing facsimile copies of the poster.
The rest is history… Since 2009 the poster has become a phenomenon. The poster and its parodies have appeared everywhere. Many versions of it reference other aspects of popular culture, like the Mario video games, with altered text, colours and iconography.
You can create your own poster here.