Own Poster: Back Down & Front Up

Being a little dyslexic, remembering 'normal' patterns often does not come naturally. 

For example, to remember left and right, I have to put both my hands down palm-down on my thighs with my thumbs out at right angles, and the one that I think looks most like an 'L' is the left hand. 

You can imagine that, if I am driving and someone says "Turn left here", statistically I will get it wrong 50% of the time, because it is very hard to take your hands off the steering wheel and check. In reality, I have either missed the turn by the time I have managed to work it out, or I over-think it, and go right. Most friends and family tell me "other left" as a matter of course.

(It was always very relaxing to drive with a friend of mine who was also dyslexic: she would simply point. SOOO much easier).

Another pattern I have a problem with remembering is which side of the chain loop to pull with blinds to make them open or close. 

As usual, I created my own solution: a little mantra which I recite to help my 'remembering'. Back down, front up. 

It reminded me of the Keep Calm and Carry On poster.

So I created my own poster :-)


Sam

• Reference: The Keep Calm-O-Matic (21 February 2016). Create. Retrieved 21 February 2016 from http://www.keepcalm-o-matic.co.uk/p/back-down-and-front-up/

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Own Poster: Clarke's Law

Further to my blog about the Keep Calm and Carry On posters, I have done a couple of my own.

This poster is Clarke's Law. I have written about sci-fi author Arthur C. Clarke's third law, that "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic" (1973, p. 36).

My Clarke's Third Law poster:

• Reference: Clarke, Arthur C. (1973). Hazards of Prophecy: The Failure of Imagination in Profiles of the Future: an Inquiry Into the Limits of the Possible (Revised Edition). USA: MacMillan (p. 36)

Sam

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Own poster: Moore's Law

Further to my blog about the Keep Calm and Carry On posters, I have done a couple of my own.

This poster is Moore's Law. Intel co-founder, Gordon Moore, observed that the number of transistors on integrated circuits had doubled about every two years, and he outlined this law in a 1965 paper. It has come to be expanded to capacity doubling, and costs halving (2 years = capacity² + cost¯²)

My Moore's Law poster:

• Reference: Moore, Gordon E. (1965). Cramming More Components onto Integrated Circuits. Electronics, April 19 1965, (pp. 114-117).

Sam

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Own Poster: Joy's Law

Further to my blog about the Keep Calm and Carry On posters, I have done a couple of my own.

This poster is Joy's Law: "No matter who you are, most of the smartest people work for someone else” - usually trimmed to 'the smartest people work for someone else' - attributed to Sun Microsystems co-founder, Bill Joy in 1983. What he meant by this is that innovation and "macro level knowledge is unevenly distributed in society, and that centralized models for economic planning and coordination are prone to failure due to an inability to aggregate this distributed knowledge" (Lakhani & Panetta, 2007, p. 2). In other words, trying to fight broadly spread knowledge and innovation is dumb. Embrace networking.

I have trimmed Joy's Law even further to make it fit my poster: 

• Reference: Lakhani, Karim and Panetta, Jill A. (2007). The Principles of Distributed Innovation in Innovations: Technology, Governance, Globalization. The Berkman Center for Internet and Society Research Paper No. 2007-7, October (Summer) 2007, Volume 2, issue 3 (pp. 1-17)

 Sam

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Keep Calm and Carry On posters

I know you will have all seen the Keep Calm and Carry On posters, recycled from the second world war, which became incredibly popular in the noughties; and locally in New Zealand, particularly since the Christchurch earthquakes.

Originally this particular poster was drawn up as a message from King George VI by the UK's Ministry of Information in 1939. It was to be used in case of invasion, to boost the morale of the general populace, but, while printed, was never released (as there was no invasion). Two other posters, "Your Courage, Your Cheerfulness, Your Resolution will Bring Us Victory" and "Freedom is in Peril Defend it with all your Might", were printed by His Majesty’s Stationery Office. In 1945, the undistributed posters were destroyed.

Then in 2000, Stuart and Mary Manley, owners of Barter Books in Northumberland, found one of the surviving 'Keep Calm and Carry On' original posters (only a very few exist, as has been discovered subsequently) in an old box of books bought at auction. They liked it, framed it, and placed near their till in the shop. People asked about it, there was a demand, so they copied it and sold it. They have a website where you can create a poster of your own, and download it for 95p (http://www.keepcalmandcarryon.com/creator/). There is also a 'me too' site where you can create and download images for free (http://www.keepcalm-o-matic.co.uk/).

Copyright lasts 70 years after the death of the owner. Not sure how that goes with a Government, though; they don't usually have a finite lifetime! But good on Stuart and Mary for their entrepreneurship. Their poster generator also has the best graphics & layout. If you want a poster, use theirs!

The font, which was originally hand drawn, is closest to Avenir. 

References:

• Barter Books Ltd (28 February 2012). The Story of Keep Calm and Carry On. Retrieved 24 January 2014 from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FrHkKXFRbCI
• K-Type (n.d.). Keep Calm and Carry On Font. Retrieved 24 January 2014 from http://www.k-type.com/?p=2199
• Keep Calm (n.d.). Creator. Retrieved 24 January 2014 from http://www.keepcalmandcarryon.com/creator/ 
• Keep Calm (n.d.). History. Retrieved 24 January 2014 from http://www.keepcalmandcarryon.com/history/
• Keep Calm-o-matic (n.d.). Get Creative. Retrieved 24 January 2014 from http://www.keepcalm-o-matic.co.uk/
• Lewis, R.M. (April 1997). The planning, design and reception of British home front propaganda posters of the Second World War. Winchester, UK: Undergradute Thesis, King Alfred's College. Retrieved 24 January 2014 from http://ww2poster.co.uk/phd-research/undergraduate-dissertation-1997/
• Slack, Chris (24 February 2012). Keep Calm and Carry On... to the bank: Original wartime poster shows up on Antiques Roadshow. UK: Daily Mail. Retrieved 24 January 2014 from http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2105518/Keep-calm-carry-Only-surviving-stash-original-iconic-poster-appears-Antiques-Roadshow.html 

Sam

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