Since first starting work on digital projects for high street retailers a few years back, I’ve attended the massive Spring and Autumn Fairs at the NEC from time to time to keep in touch with product developments and e-commerce requirements. It’s always interesting to see how these events develop and what trends are the focus of the moment.

The Autumn Fairs are about a third the size of the Spring ones as most big retailers need to be making big purchase decisions early in the year if they stand a chance of making the most of the Christmas retail surge, so it is a more about looking for opportunities that smaller operators can respond to quickly.

As we appear to be teetering on the edge of a double dip recession, the nervousness was palpable at this year’s Autumn event with stands calling for people to ignore the ‘doom and gloom’ messages and take faith in this or that offering to earn much needed revenue.

Thinking back a few years as financial crisis hit and recessionary fears started growing, I saw the trend for wartime memorabilia first emerging at the Spring Fair with the arrival of designs based on the classic ‘Keep Calm and Carry On’ Government posters. Since then, in true capitalistic style, the original design and a myriad of copies and variations can be seen on an increasing range of items in many shops around the country. Indeed, if the exhibition stands at the NEC are anything to go by, there is going to be even more of this stuff  before the ‘fad’ subsides.

In one of a few ‘laugh out loud’ moments as I walked the aisles this year, I spotted the wonderfully irreverent offerings from ‘Modern Toss’ and the design featured on the picture above. As crude as it is, the message hits at the heart of the issues we are currently facing in our societies, which on a slightly more intellectual level was examined recently in a BBC article about the ‘prophetic’ views of capitalism and its potential weaknesses by Karl Marx. Continue reading →