As a logo, it was nearly as recognisable as Coca-Cola or Apple. As an image, it was now up there alongside Rosie the Riveter, the muscular female munitions worker in the US second world war propaganda image as easily identifiable as the headscarved Lily Brik bellowing “BOOKS!” on Rodchenko’s famous poster. It felt like confirmation that the image had entered the pantheon of truly global design “icons”. I was going into the flagship Warsaw branch of the Polish department store Empik and there, just past the revolving doors, was a collection of notebooks, mouse pads, diaries and the like, featuring a familiar English sans serif font, white on red, topped with the crown, in English: I can pinpoint the precise moment at which I realised that what had seemed a typically, somewhat insufferably, English phenomenon had gone completely and inescapably global. It is the ruling emblem of an era that is increasingly defined by austerity nostalgia. And, unlike most memes, it has been astonishingly enduring, a canvas on to which practically anything can be projected while retaining a sense of ironic reassurance. Around eight years after it started to appear, it has become quite possibly the most successful meme in history. Then there were those related to Islamic State: “Keep Calm and Fight Isis” on the standard red background with the crown above and “Keep Calm and Support Isis” on a black background, with the crown replaced by the Isis logo. Some were related to the floods – a flagrantly opportunistic Liberal Democrat poster, with “Keep Calm and Survive Floods”, and the somewhat more mordant “Keep Calm and Make a Photo of Floods”. In the last few days I’ve seen it twice as a poster advertising a pub’s New Year’s Eve party, several times in souvenir shops, in a photograph accompanying a Guardian article on the imminent doctors’ strike (“Keep Calm and Save the NHS”) and as the subject of too many internet memes to count. To get some sense of just what a monster it has become, try counting the number of times in a week you see some permutation of the “Keep Calm and Carry On” poster.
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