Re: [stopwaryouth] FW: [MAPC-discuss] MAPC Logo Design -- Graphics, Symbolism,and Baggage
Title
Re: [stopwaryouth] FW: [MAPC-discuss] MAPC Logo Design -- Graphics, Symbolism,and Baggage
Source
born-digital
Media Type
email
Date Entered
2001-11-13
September 11 Email: Body
-- Just a clarification that the Student caucus do not all feel negatively toward the peace symbol. Some had issues with it, and had an alternate idea, but is was not a group position. Thanks for the interesting historical info on the symbol. I'm all for carrying on the tradition! X
>I couldn't read all the way through this message from X without
>reacting... here goes:
>
>My best advice to the kids and the grown-ups who want to hassle this is "get
>a life." The Peace Symbol is a wonderful thing... paint it green if you
>have to, use it as a global truss if that appeals to your graphic
>sensibilities, but don't drop it and here's why...
>
>The so called "Peace Symbol" pre-dates most of us (apologies to the
>septuagenarians and older folks in our membership). By the mid-1950s,
>public protests of the nuclear arms race were building. In 1955, the year in
>which Albert Einstein died, he and Bertrand Russell issued a Manifesto
>warning of the dangers of continuing the nuclear arms race. Two years later
>in 1957 the great humanitarian Albert Schweitzer made a public "Declaration
>of Conscience" in which he stated that "the end of further experiments with
>atom bombs would be like early sun rays of hope which suffering humanity is
>longing for." The Committee for a Sane Nuclear Policy (SANE), an
>organization of private citizens seeking to alter official nuclear policies,
>was formed in 1957.
>
>One of the most widely known symbols in the world, in Britain it is
>recognised as standing for nuclear disarmament - and in particular as the
>logo of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND). In the United States and
>much of the rest of the world it is known more broadly as the peace symbol.
>It was designed in 1958 by Gerald Holtom, a professional designer and artist
>and a graduate of the Royal College of Arts. He showed his preliminary
>sketches to a small group of people in the Peace News office in North London
>and to the Direct Action Committee Against Nuclear War, one of several
>smaller organisations that came together to set up CND.
>
>The Direct Action Committee had already planned what was to be the first
>major anti-nuclear march, from London to Aldermaston, where British nuclear
>weapons were and still are manufactured. It was on that march, over the 1958
>Easter weekend that the symbol first appeared in public. Five hundred
>cardboard lollipops on sticks were produced. Half were black on white and
>half white on green. Just as the church's liturgical colours change over
>Easter, so the colours were to change, "from Winter to Spring, from Death to
>Life." Black and white would be displayed on Good Friday and Saturday, green
>and white on Easter Sunday and Monday.
>
>The first badges were made by Eric Austin of Kensington CND using white clay
>with the symbol painted black. Again there was a conscious symbolism . They
>were distributed with a note explaining that in the event of a nuclear war,
>these fired pottery badges would be among the few human artifacts to survive
>the nuclear inferno. These early ceramic badges can still be found and one,
>lent by CND, was included in the Imperial War Museum's 1999/2000 exhibition
>From the Bomb to the Beatles.
>
>What does it mean?
>
>Gerald Holtom, a conscientious objector who had worked on a farm in Norfolk
>during the Second World War, explained that the symbol incorporated the
>semaphore letters N(uclear) and D(isarmament). He later wrote to Hugh Brock,
>editor of Peace News, explaining the genesis of his idea in greater, more
>personal depth:
>
>I was in despair. Deep despair. I drew myself: the representative of an
>individual in despair, with hands palm outstretched outwards and downwards
>in the manner of Goya's peasant before the firing squad. I formalised the
>drawing into a line and put a circle round it.
>
>Eric Austin added his own interpretation of the design: "the gesture of
>despair had long been associated with the death of Man and the circle with
>the unborn child."
>
>
>Gerald Holtom 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. Later, ironically, Christian CND were to use the symbol
>with the central stroke extended upwards to form the upright of a cross.
>This adaptation of the design was only one of many subsequently invented by
>various groups within CND and for specific occasions - with a cross below as
>a women's symbol, with a daffodil or a thistle incorporated by CND Cymru and
>Scottish CND, with little legs for a sponsored walk etc. Whether Gerald
>Holtom would have approved of some of the more light-hearted versions is
>open to doubt.
>
>The symbol almost at once crossed the Atlantic. Bayard Rustin, a close
>associate of Martin Luther King had come over from the US in order to take
>part in that first Aldermaston March. He took the symbol back to the United
>States where it was used on civil rights marches. Later it appeared on
>anti-Vietnam War demonstrations and was even seen daubed in protest on their
>helmets by American GIs. Simpler to draw than the Picasso peace dove, it
>became known, first in the US and then round the world as the peace symbol.
>It appeared on the walls of Prague when the Soviet tanks invaded in 1968, on
>the Berlin Wall, in Sarajevo and Belgrade, on the graves of the victims of
>military dictators from the Greek Colonels to the Argentinian junta, and
>most recently in East Timor.
>
>There have been claims that the symbol has older, occult or anti-Christian
>associations. In South Africa, under the apartheid regime, there was an
>official attempt to ban it. Various far-right and fundamentalist American
>groups have also spread the idea of Satanic associations or condemned it as
>a Communist sign. However the origins and the ideas behind the symbol have
>been clearly described, both in letters and in interviews, by Gerald Holtom
>and his original, first sketches are now on display as part of the
>Commonweal Collection in Bradford.
>
>Although specifically designed for the anti-nuclear movement it has quite
>deliberately never been copyrighted. No one has to pay or to seek permission
>before they use it. 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.
>
>(material from the CND website)
>
>
>
>
>Here is a link to the Russell - Einstein manisfesto issued in 1955:
>http://www.nuclearfiles.org/docs/1955/550709-russel-einstein.html
>
>
>
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: X
>Sent: Monday, November 12, 2001 8:51 PM
>To: discuss@madpeace.org
>Cc: stopwardisc@yahoogroups.com
>Subject: [MAPC-discuss] MAPC Logo Design -- Graphics, Symbolism, and
>Baggage
>
>
>Hi all!
>
>Just a heads up that the MAPC logo will be on the agenda for Tuesday night's
>general membership meeting, and a few comments (okay, I lied - lots of
>comments) since I may not be able to attend the whole meeting.
>
>While (AFAIK) we've never voted on this, the peace sign wrapped around the
>globe has become the de facto MAPC logo. (IIRC the general membership
>referred the logo question back to the Arts & Culture WG, and they couldn't
>come up with anything better.)
>
>The Student/Youth Caucus has objected to this logo, and designed a new one,
>which will be presented on Tuesday. (As I understand it, the problem is
>that the peace sign is tied to a particular historic era, and carries
>baggage which is too hippie-ish -- as opposed to activist. There is also
>concern that the grey-scale of the logo does not reduce or reproduce well.)
>Their proposed logo has a half-globe, without peace sign, with paler images
>of the globe radiating out from it. (Lousy description, I know.)
>
>I sympathize with the S/YC's objections, but I like their proposed graphic
>even less than the one we've been using. To me, it's not particularly
>distinctive, and a globe alone just doesn't say "peace" to me. It could
>just as easily be the logo graphic for a global telecommunications
>corporation.
>
>Then again, I'm not sure that any graphic we pick to represent
>"peace/anti-war" will be acceptable to and truly representative of the whole
>Coalition. The Vietnam-era peace sign is, well, Vietnam era, and doesn't
>represent the new generation of activists. The dove has a longer history,
>but strikes me as a bit too "Pacifist" in image, as does the rifle with a
>flower in its barrel, broken rifle, broken bomb, and a few others. The
>other predominant image from the Vietnam era, the clenched fist, of course,
>has the opposite connotation. We've already been through the discussion of
>incorporating the symbolism of the American flag; some of us think "peace is
>patriotic" and others of us think U.S. nationalism is part of the problem.
>And while the globe could well be something that none of us object to, it
>really doesn't symbolize anything that distinguishes us from the other side.
>
>"Madison area" is tough to symbolize graphically. The most identifiable
>symbols are architectural (the State Capitol), and we have nothing to do
>with state government. Doing something with the outline of the state and
>highlighting the Madison area really doesn't work graphically. And I doubt
>that anyone would recognize that a satellite view of the Four Lakes was
>anything other than a Rorschach inkblot test.
>
>We could try to have a symbol for everyone, incorporating lots of different
>images in the logo, but the result would likely be an unwieldy mess.
>
>My personal opinion at this point is that we should either (1)come up with a
>graphic that is brand new -- no baggage from past movements or ideologies --
>(and I have no earthly idea what this would be); or (2) just go with a
>"words-only" logo, using a very distinctive typestyle and arrangement of the
>words in our organization name. If the typestyle and arrangement are
>distinctive enough, IMO the logo will be recognizeable and identifiable, and
>would avoid the symbolism & baggage problems inherent in selecting any
>graphic image for a diverse coalition.
>
>XX
>
>
>
>_______________________________________________
>discuss@madpeace.org mailing list
>http://lists.OpenSoftwareServices.com/mailman/listinfo/madpeace-discuss
>
>
>------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor ---------------------~-->
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>Includes black and color ink.
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>---------------------------------------------------------------------~->
>
>To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
>stopwaryouth-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com
>
>
>
>Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
>
>
>I couldn't read all the way through this message from X without
>reacting... here goes:
>
>My best advice to the kids and the grown-ups who want to hassle this is "get
>a life." The Peace Symbol is a wonderful thing... paint it green if you
>have to, use it as a global truss if that appeals to your graphic
>sensibilities, but don't drop it and here's why...
>
>The so called "Peace Symbol" pre-dates most of us (apologies to the
>septuagenarians and older folks in our membership). By the mid-1950s,
>public protests of the nuclear arms race were building. In 1955, the year in
>which Albert Einstein died, he and Bertrand Russell issued a Manifesto
>warning of the dangers of continuing the nuclear arms race. Two years later
>in 1957 the great humanitarian Albert Schweitzer made a public "Declaration
>of Conscience" in which he stated that "the end of further experiments with
>atom bombs would be like early sun rays of hope which suffering humanity is
>longing for." The Committee for a Sane Nuclear Policy (SANE), an
>organization of private citizens seeking to alter official nuclear policies,
>was formed in 1957.
>
>One of the most widely known symbols in the world, in Britain it is
>recognised as standing for nuclear disarmament - and in particular as the
>logo of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND). In the United States and
>much of the rest of the world it is known more broadly as the peace symbol.
>It was designed in 1958 by Gerald Holtom, a professional designer and artist
>and a graduate of the Royal College of Arts. He showed his preliminary
>sketches to a small group of people in the Peace News office in North London
>and to the Direct Action Committee Against Nuclear War, one of several
>smaller organisations that came together to set up CND.
>
>The Direct Action Committee had already planned what was to be the first
>major anti-nuclear march, from London to Aldermaston, where British nuclear
>weapons were and still are manufactured. It was on that march, over the 1958
>Easter weekend that the symbol first appeared in public. Five hundred
>cardboard lollipops on sticks were produced. Half were black on white and
>half white on green. Just as the church's liturgical colours change over
>Easter, so the colours were to change, "from Winter to Spring, from Death to
>Life." Black and white would be displayed on Good Friday and Saturday, green
>and white on Easter Sunday and Monday.
>
>The first badges were made by Eric Austin of Kensington CND using white clay
>with the symbol painted black. Again there was a conscious symbolism . They
>were distributed with a note explaining that in the event of a nuclear war,
>these fired pottery badges would be among the few human artifacts to survive
>the nuclear inferno. These early ceramic badges can still be found and one,
>lent by CND, was included in the Imperial War Museum's 1999/2000 exhibition
>From the Bomb to the Beatles.
>
>What does it mean?
>
>Gerald Holtom, a conscientious objector who had worked on a farm in Norfolk
>during the Second World War, explained that the symbol incorporated the
>semaphore letters N(uclear) and D(isarmament). He later wrote to Hugh Brock,
>editor of Peace News, explaining the genesis of his idea in greater, more
>personal depth:
>
>I was in despair. Deep despair. I drew myself: the representative of an
>individual in despair, with hands palm outstretched outwards and downwards
>in the manner of Goya's peasant before the firing squad. I formalised the
>drawing into a line and put a circle round it.
>
>Eric Austin added his own interpretation of the design: "the gesture of
>despair had long been associated with the death of Man and the circle with
>the unborn child."
>
>
>Gerald Holtom 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. Later, ironically, Christian CND were to use the symbol
>with the central stroke extended upwards to form the upright of a cross.
>This adaptation of the design was only one of many subsequently invented by
>various groups within CND and for specific occasions - with a cross below as
>a women's symbol, with a daffodil or a thistle incorporated by CND Cymru and
>Scottish CND, with little legs for a sponsored walk etc. Whether Gerald
>Holtom would have approved of some of the more light-hearted versions is
>open to doubt.
>
>The symbol almost at once crossed the Atlantic. Bayard Rustin, a close
>associate of Martin Luther King had come over from the US in order to take
>part in that first Aldermaston March. He took the symbol back to the United
>States where it was used on civil rights marches. Later it appeared on
>anti-Vietnam War demonstrations and was even seen daubed in protest on their
>helmets by American GIs. Simpler to draw than the Picasso peace dove, it
>became known, first in the US and then round the world as the peace symbol.
>It appeared on the walls of Prague when the Soviet tanks invaded in 1968, on
>the Berlin Wall, in Sarajevo and Belgrade, on the graves of the victims of
>military dictators from the Greek Colonels to the Argentinian junta, and
>most recently in East Timor.
>
>There have been claims that the symbol has older, occult or anti-Christian
>associations. In South Africa, under the apartheid regime, there was an
>official attempt to ban it. Various far-right and fundamentalist American
>groups have also spread the idea of Satanic associations or condemned it as
>a Communist sign. However the origins and the ideas behind the symbol have
>been clearly described, both in letters and in interviews, by Gerald Holtom
>and his original, first sketches are now on display as part of the
>Commonweal Collection in Bradford.
>
>Although specifically designed for the anti-nuclear movement it has quite
>deliberately never been copyrighted. No one has to pay or to seek permission
>before they use it. 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.
>
>(material from the CND website)
>
>
>
>
>Here is a link to the Russell - Einstein manisfesto issued in 1955:
>http://www.nuclearfiles.org/docs/1955/550709-russel-einstein.html
>
>
>
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: X
>Sent: Monday, November 12, 2001 8:51 PM
>To: discuss@madpeace.org
>Cc: stopwardisc@yahoogroups.com
>Subject: [MAPC-discuss] MAPC Logo Design -- Graphics, Symbolism, and
>Baggage
>
>
>Hi all!
>
>Just a heads up that the MAPC logo will be on the agenda for Tuesday night's
>general membership meeting, and a few comments (okay, I lied - lots of
>comments) since I may not be able to attend the whole meeting.
>
>While (AFAIK) we've never voted on this, the peace sign wrapped around the
>globe has become the de facto MAPC logo. (IIRC the general membership
>referred the logo question back to the Arts & Culture WG, and they couldn't
>come up with anything better.)
>
>The Student/Youth Caucus has objected to this logo, and designed a new one,
>which will be presented on Tuesday. (As I understand it, the problem is
>that the peace sign is tied to a particular historic era, and carries
>baggage which is too hippie-ish -- as opposed to activist. There is also
>concern that the grey-scale of the logo does not reduce or reproduce well.)
>Their proposed logo has a half-globe, without peace sign, with paler images
>of the globe radiating out from it. (Lousy description, I know.)
>
>I sympathize with the S/YC's objections, but I like their proposed graphic
>even less than the one we've been using. To me, it's not particularly
>distinctive, and a globe alone just doesn't say "peace" to me. It could
>just as easily be the logo graphic for a global telecommunications
>corporation.
>
>Then again, I'm not sure that any graphic we pick to represent
>"peace/anti-war" will be acceptable to and truly representative of the whole
>Coalition. The Vietnam-era peace sign is, well, Vietnam era, and doesn't
>represent the new generation of activists. The dove has a longer history,
>but strikes me as a bit too "Pacifist" in image, as does the rifle with a
>flower in its barrel, broken rifle, broken bomb, and a few others. The
>other predominant image from the Vietnam era, the clenched fist, of course,
>has the opposite connotation. We've already been through the discussion of
>incorporating the symbolism of the American flag; some of us think "peace is
>patriotic" and others of us think U.S. nationalism is part of the problem.
>And while the globe could well be something that none of us object to, it
>really doesn't symbolize anything that distinguishes us from the other side.
>
>"Madison area" is tough to symbolize graphically. The most identifiable
>symbols are architectural (the State Capitol), and we have nothing to do
>with state government. Doing something with the outline of the state and
>highlighting the Madison area really doesn't work graphically. And I doubt
>that anyone would recognize that a satellite view of the Four Lakes was
>anything other than a Rorschach inkblot test.
>
>We could try to have a symbol for everyone, incorporating lots of different
>images in the logo, but the result would likely be an unwieldy mess.
>
>My personal opinion at this point is that we should either (1)come up with a
>graphic that is brand new -- no baggage from past movements or ideologies --
>(and I have no earthly idea what this would be); or (2) just go with a
>"words-only" logo, using a very distinctive typestyle and arrangement of the
>words in our organization name. If the typestyle and arrangement are
>distinctive enough, IMO the logo will be recognizeable and identifiable, and
>would avoid the symbolism & baggage problems inherent in selecting any
>graphic image for a diverse coalition.
>
>XX
>
>
>
>_______________________________________________
>discuss@madpeace.org mailing list
>http://lists.OpenSoftwareServices.com/mailman/listinfo/madpeace-discuss
>
>
>------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor ---------------------~-->
>Universal Inkjet Refill Kit $29.95
>Refill any ink cartridge for less!
>Includes black and color ink.
>http://us.click.yahoo.com/XwUZwC/MkNDAA/ySSFAA/XgSolB/TM
>---------------------------------------------------------------------~->
>
>To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
>stopwaryouth-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com
>
>
>
>Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
>
>
September 11 Email: Date
Tuesday, November 13, 2001 8:04 AM
September 11 Email: Subject
Re: [stopwaryouth] FW: [MAPC-discuss] MAPC Logo Design -- Graphics, Symbolism,and Baggage
Collection
Citation
“Re: [stopwaryouth] FW: [MAPC-discuss] MAPC Logo Design -- Graphics, Symbolism,and Baggage,” September 11 Digital Archive, accessed November 7, 2024, https://911digitalarchive.org/items/show/1204.