Monday 17 August 2015

Keep Calm and Carry Wrong

It's over, lets celebrate. I think it's over at least, I haven't seen any imagery of the "keep calm..." variety in a long while so I assume the fad is dead. nothing stinks of lack of creativity then revisiting and old idea and ripping it off shamelessly without a bat of an eyelid or any care for it's history. the original was intended to keep up morale during the blitz during the second world war. It was designed by the ministry for information, and for a public sector body doing a design job they did a smashing job. According to wikipedia "The typeface is often assumed to be Gill Sans, which is very close but not exact (see the terminals of the 'C', for example). The lettering was perhaps hand drawn by a now-unknown designer." Making this ever more tragic that the maker of such an icon is unknown.

One thing I would say is that I would hate the man responsible for this to see what a mess the market make of his piece. He certainly wouldn't of made any money off of the thousand and thousands and thousands of parodies of this. It's on mugs, t-shirts, tea towels, stationary, phone cases and probably underpants. It became widely destroyed icon I started to hate it; I mean what is the link between this;


One is to keep spirits high in the event that you and/or your family home is bombed during the blitz and the other is keeping you calm casting a fictional spell that does nothing outside the lens of the camera in a film studio with a special effects guy making something happen. Having it on a pop compilation album is wrong, having wrapping paper is wrong. making fandom relevant versions of it is wrong. removing carry on and putting love _______ is stupid and wrong.

I am so happy to celebrate the end of a fad that stopped originality and creativity in it's tracks.

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