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THE PEACE SYMBOL
The anti-nuclear emblem or the peace sign is one of the most
widely known symbols in the world.
It was invented on the request of lord bertrand russel, head of
the british 'campaign for nuclear disarmament' or CND and
sponsor of mass marches and sit-downs in london. The graphic
symbol was designed by Gerald Holtom, a member of the CND
movement, as the badge of the 'direct action committee against
nuclear war', for the first demonstration against aldermaston (a
british research center for the development of nuclear weapons)
in 1958. Holtom, a professional designer
and a graduate of the london royal college of arts, had
originally considered using the christian cross symbol within a
circle as the motif for the march, but various priests he had
approached with the suggestion were not happy at the idea of
using the cross on a protest march. From a design point of view,
it is interesting to note that the original sketches are
preserved at the school of peace studies, at the bradford
university. They show a symbol that stood for 'the death of man
and the unborn child' and that symbol was designed from the
naval code of semaphore - the code letters for N and D (nuclear
disarmament). N is two flags, arms downstretched at a forty-five
degree angle, and D is two flags, one arm straight up and one
straight down. the ends of the 'arms' and 'legs' thicken and
splay out noticeably as they approach the circumference. the
circle itself was thick - the thickening itself has two
versions: in one, all the straight strokes are thickened; in the
other, only those in the lower half of the circle. it is said,
that the reason for the symbol being upside down (D over N) is
that semaphore is a military code and upside down symbolizes
'anti-military'.
The symbol was quickly adopted in the US when a friend of
Martin Luther King Jr., Bayard Rustin began using it during
civil rights marches. the power of this symbol is emphasized by
the fact that various far-right and fundamentalist american
groups, during the 1970s, seriously considered forbidding it
(they have spread the idea of satanic associations and condemned
it as a communist sign).
In South Africa, under the apartheid regime, there was an
official attempt to ban it. Also anti-vietnam war protesters
picked it up, and it was called’the footprint of the great
american chicken’ by many american soldiers during the vietnam
war era.
Deliberately never copyrighted, the symbol is still recognized
in great britain as the logo for nuclear disarmament, but is
known worldwide for peace and non-violence. No one has to pay or
to seek permission before they use it. As a symbol of freedom,
it is free for all. This of course sometimes leads to its use,
or misuse, in circumstances that CND and the peace movement find
distasteful. It is also often exploited for commercial,
advertising or generally fashion purposes. "We can’t stop this
happening and have no intention of copyrighting it. All we can
do is to ask commercial users if they
would like to make a donation. Any money received is used for
CND's peace education and information work' says the campaign
for nuclear disarmament website
http://www.cnduk.org
--information gathered from the website: http://www.designboom.com/contemporary/peace.html |
