Which is more overexposed?

"For Like Ever" or "Keep Calm and CArry On"?

Wende?

I just don't get why this poster was ever popular.

Stupid

It's pretty and cool but pretty much everyone must have it now. It would suck to feature it in your home and have nothing but people saying they have the same one.

I loved it when I first saw it, in the Domino that featured Jesse Randall's of Loeffler Randall's place. I am totally down for copying something you saw somewhere, but also down for maybe just taking the idea of something to make it your own, and maybe have gotten a graphic poster that said something else. But I agree, I'd be a little bummed if I was Jesse Randall and realized everyone was putting this poster up.

As far as over-exposure, determining that would require documenting non-Smallest, Coolest postings. "Keep Calm and Carry On" shows up once in S,C (if that); "For Like Ever" not at all.

But they keep popping up in other parts of the site, plus if you read more than one regional site, you get a double dose of many topics.

Unfortunately, the postings that feature these graphics don't consistently spell out their messages! So a quick site-specific Googling of the two phrases gives nothing for KC&CO (which is definitely wrong; it's in someone's kitchen and someone else's home office, at absolute minimum) and two hits for FLE, including this one.

Oh, but just try searching for those phrases on Flickr. Wow! I admit I haven't really searched for "For Like Ever" but the other one IS everywhere.

should jessie randall be the only one who is allowed to have the poster?

should loeffler randall only sell one pair of shoes?

does something's popularity make it less cool?

i doubt "everyone" has it. who is everyone, and what does it really matter, anyway? answer: it doesn't.

I'm the one who has KC&CO in my office (not my home office), but I bought it knowing that it was popular in AT circles, and also knowing that very few people at work had been aware of it. It's not decor there, just a necessary message.

thank-you bitsandbobbons!

No, bitsandbobbins, when other people have something you have it doesn't make it less cool--it makes it less original. It's the same feeling you got when your little sister or classmate tried to wear the same things as you. That whole imitation being the sincerest form of flattery thing, but the feeling we all have about still wanting to be a little unique.

If not, hey, we wouldn't have this site because we wouldn't be looking for anything different; we'd all be buying the same outfits at the GAP and going home to our cookie cutter Crate and Barrel interiors.

again, it doesn't really matter if something is popular. if one truly likes something, it doesn't really matter if others have it. to be threatened by other people having a similar product suggests insecurity.

again, so what if many people have it? the *more* interesting thing (to me) is to see how different people interpret something and make it part of their own aesthetic.

Read the first paragraph of this post, specifically the last line: http://sanfrancisco.apartmenttherapy.com/sf/032007//hatchs-trendy-object-scavenger-hunt-019702

I'm not saying it matters, I'm just saying many people like to be original. It's not a big deal, but I think people like us, who visit design blogs and are obsessed with design in general, are a bit touchy about our own personal style and would rather have more original items than an interior that looks like a Pottery Barn catalogue.

I have KC&CO and I love it! I think everyone should own it.

I'm with the person at the top of this message string said who likes it and why? Can you describe why? Because I can describe why not. That pink and red is just tacky and it sounds like a teenie bopper girl who can't speak properly. :P

how/why is this considered a limited edition if it was sold out and is now being reissued?

it is a suitable gift perhaps for a 13 year old valley girl or a sweet 16 birthday gift...but for an adult? come on people, let's please do better than this saccharine pulp.

I own this print and purchased it when the domino came out. It's quirky and cute (and no im not 13 or a valley girl). I am a designer so i like to support other designers.

Honestly this thread/the comments are making me irate right now. Village, the company responsible for this print is a small independent type foundry. They are great people and honestly for them, being such a small operation, i bet the sale of all these prints is financially floating them for the whole year, paying someones salary, etc.

So you all can all rave over every little artist-produced plate sold on etsy while pondering the age old adage of "I don't like this anymore now that OTHER people do" (aka the indie credo) or you can realize that buying this print is basically the same thing as supporting an independent artist. A small, independent type company made a promotional print for one of their typefaces....they got lucky and it got featured in a magazine....maybe I'm just not jaded, but I applaud them and say congrats on the exposure, they deserve it.

Then of course there is also the hillarity of everyone going on and on about "this print is everywhere" .... and yet all i see in every contest and question here is "i got it at west elm" "where can i find something cheaper but similar to this room & board item".

So I leave you to instead ponder this: If we deleted every post and contest entry featuring items from: cb2, room & board, design within reach and west elm.....would there even be anything left?

well said v.

For Like Ever just doesn't carry any meaning for me personally... it's like listening to myself in the worst of my teenage years.

If you don't understand the history, behind Keep Calm and Carry On, I expect it would be easy for you to dismiss it as irrelevant. I have a picture of one of my relatives, in front of a relatively rare Keep Calm and Carry On poster, in London during WWII so the saying and image do mean something to me. I have one hanging in my home, as a reminder to keep on when times get tough, it hangs right beside my Bette Midler program of 'The Showgirl Must Go On' and both serve to keep me motivated. I even have a small copy of Keep Calm on my work binder, with the parody on the other side (Bloody Hell We're Buggered Now), and in this layoff-inducing rollercoaster world it cracks me up and sometimes my colleagues as well.

And I buy what I like not what I think is cool, hip, or will make others think I'm cool or hip, "because, like, y'know", what would be the point?