I’ve been talking to the New York Times, as Rob Walker’s Consumed Column will be discussing the Keep Calm and Carry On poster on 12th July (I’ll have a link once I know), and in going through the Fact Checking today, we were talking about the numbers of posters produced. Keep Calm and Carry On was produced alongside ‘Your Courage, Your Cheerfulness, Your Resolution’ and ‘Your Freedom is in Peril: Fight for it Now’. In my thesis, when only the ‘Your Courage’ poster was really known, there was some reference to the ‘Keep Calm’ poster, but it’s only truly come into the public consciousness late 2008 as the recession truly started to bite (although Barter Books had been producing the design for 10 years), although more of the Keep Calm posters were produced than any of the other 2… and I wonder how many of them now exist, as they will now be worth much more than they used to be!
By 23 August the proportions to be printed were decided. The percentages were: ‘Freedom is in Peril’ (for remote areas), 12%; ‘Keep Calm and Carry on’, 65%; and ‘Your Courage, etc.’, 23%.
Demand for Printing Slip for HMSO, 31/8/39 for MOI. ‘Keep Calm’, ‘Your Courage’ and ‘Freedom is in Peril’, from The National Archives, INF 1/226 
| Quantity | Description | ‘Keep Calm’ |
| 1,800 | 20’ x 10’ | |
| 2,100 | 13’4 x 10’ | |
| 11,000 | 6’8 x 10’ | |
| 1,000 | 6’8 x 5’ | Broadside |
| 2,500 | 60” x 40” | Upright |
| 9,000 | 60” x 40” | Broadside |
| 875 | 30” x 40” | Broadside |
| 700 | 40” x 25” | |
| 496,500 | 30” x 20” | |
| 427,600 | 20” x 15” | Upright |
| 1,486,000 | 15” x 10” | Upright |
| 8,000 | 22” x 22” |
| Quantity | Description | Your Courage… |
| 950 | 20’ x 10’ | |
| 1,250 | 13’4 x 10’ | |
| 5,600 | 6’8 x 10’ | |
| 2,500 | 6’8 x 5’ | Broadside |
| 3,750 | 60” x 40” | Upright |
| 4,500 | 60” x 40” | Broadside |
| 375 | 30” x 40” | Broadside |
| 300 | 40” x 25” | |
| 137,500 | 30” x 20” | |
| 130,000 | 20” x 15” | Upright |
| 550,000 | 15” x 10” | Upright |
| Quantity | Description | Freedom is in Peril |
| 200 | 20’ x 10’ | |
| 300 | 13’4 x 10’ | |
| 2,500 | 6’8 x 10’ | |
| 1,750 | 6’8 x 5’ | |
| 3,500 | 60” x 40” | Upright |
| 66,000 | 30” x 20” | |
| 62,400 | 20” x 15” | Upright |
| 264,000 | 15” x 10” | Upright |
2 replies on “Keep Calm and Carry On: Production Numbers”
[…] 1939: The Three Posters (PhD Extract) Filed under: PhD thesis, keep calm and carry on — Tags: keep calm and carry on, poster, propaganda, subverted, war — drbexl @ 12:06 am On seeing Paul Matson’s re-interpretation of the series of the first three posters, I thought I’d add an extract from my PhD thesis (please reference me if you quote… I have noticed phrasings very similar to my thesis surrounding this story, mostly collated from my original research). It was great to hear last week that my PhD thesis is being digitised by the British Library (which only happens if there is enough demand to read it!)… not surprising though as it’s an interesting subject! EXTRACT FROM: Commissioning, Planning, Distributing and Displaying Posters (see original webpage) [Sorry, can't seem to get rid of the weird footnoting on here!] For more information on the numbers, read here. […]
[…] from undergraduate dissertation and PhD thesis. Check out the production numbers here. Possibly related posts: (automatically generated)Press Freedom In PhilippinesPolitical T-Shirt […]