This image has become so ubiquitous, in fact, that you have probably already seen it printed somewhere on something today. This design only became an icon of popular culture more recently, when the design was rediscovered, and redistributed on a worldwide scale in the early 2000’s. After 1945, all of the prints in storage were destroyed to make pulp (for new paper) and very few of these original prints remain. The poster was printed in a run of 2.5 million copies, but the government deferred them to storage for use after a potential air raid, and they were never actually hung or distributed.
“KEEP CALM AND CARRY ON” was a poster design originally created in 1939 as a series of three motivational posters from the British Government’s Ministry of Information, in order to boost public morale during WWII.
