Be peace one second at a time.

Eric Overby

I’m out having a coffee and rocking my favourite peace tee today.
Have you ever wondered how it was that symbol came to be?
Well let my whip out my smartphone and Google it for you….

But first, better take a selfie of me striking a completely natural pose as if someone else is taking the photo. Bam.

The peace sign was designed by a graphic artist named Gerald Holtom back in 1958. It was to be used for the British Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, and as Holtom had some experience with using semaphores, he incorporated the flag signals for ‘N’ and ‘D’ (Nuclear Disarmament) within a circle.

He also considered the sign symbolic of his own dispair

“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.”

Gerald Holtom.

Even though Holtom’s own explanation is quite clear, others have pointed to alternate source symbolism including the Death Rune from the Futhark runic alphabet (source), or Christian origin stories with the circle representing the pre-creation formless void, and the forked lines representing God’s gift of deliverance (source).

Nuclear disarmament….well how’s it going for us?
Whilst there have been reductions in the proliferation of high-yield intercontinental missiles and other such weapons of mass destruction, unfortunately, when it comes to nuclear war, armageddon minus X still equals armageddon.

Mankind blew up the entire planet and all I got was this lousy tee.