Happy Birthday Peace Symbol
This year the peace symbol celebrates its 50th anniversary, and Happy Birthday Peace.com has been launched to celebrate the symbol and it’s roots.
The peace symbol is one of the most widely known icons in the world. It’s creation came on the request of Lord Betrand Russel as head of the British Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, and used as a mascot for CND marches and rallies.
The Designer
The symbol was designed in 1958 by Gerald Holtom, who lived in Twickenham, London, and was a member of the CND movement. A professional designer and artist, Holtrom was a graduate of the Royal College of arts and developed the symbol from a combination of the semaphoric signals for the letters “N” and “D” …..so as to represent Nuclear Disarmament.
Semaphoric signals are graphical symbols depicting hand-held flags in a specific pattern to represent letters of the alphabet and often used in shipping and military for communication. The flags are held at arms length, and are usually square, red and yellow.
In the design the D is over the top of the N, and according to Holtom the reason for these symbols being upside down is that semaphore is a military code and therefore placing them upside down is a representation of anti-military.
For anyone deeply interested in the development of this design, the original sketches for the peace symbol are preserved at the school/department of peace studies at Bradford University.
First Used
The peace symbol had it’s first public airing over the 1958 Easter weekend at the first major anti-nuclear march from London to Aldermaston, which was a research center for the development of nuclear weapons, and still in operation today.
Copyright ownership of the design
The forked icon of the peace symbol was quite deliberately never copyrighted and there is no need to seek permission or pay to use it.
The Happy Birthday Peace website is calling for entries from anyone for their own artistic representation of the peace symbol and provide a template for download.
Submissions are already live on the Happy Birthday Peace website for viewing and include works from celebrities such as keen cnd supporter and actress Kate Hudson.
I wanted to write this blog and show you my own entry at the same time but I haven’t had time to do it yet….however I’m determined to create an entry soon so watch this space!
