The terrible events in Paris last week saw a wave of fraternité sweep the world and so social media. The single image that spoke to so many in their declaration of kinship with the French nation was London-based French illustrator Jean Jullien’s Peace for Paris (link: http://www.jeanjullien.com text: sketch). As an indication of its great reach, just look at this: over 165,000 Instagram likes, 45,000 likes on Twitter and 60,000 retweets. There are countless other shares (a number of which came from a fake Banksy Twitter account, who apparently posted it without credit moments after Jean Jullien himself posted it) as well as its use on posters, T-shirts and banners.
“It was more an instinctive, human reaction than an illustrator’s reaction,” said Jean Jullien in an interview with Adweek (one of many organisations who have used the now iconic illustration on their masthead).
As one of three illustrators who run a blog called (link: http://newsofthetimes.tumblr.com text: News of the Times), Jean Jullien has posted many striking visual responses to current events, like (link: http://newsofthetimes.tumblr.com/post/95182938704 text: this one) in the wake of the shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri last year.
What’s so remarkable about Jullien’s talent is his seemingly effortless ability to distil his thoughts into a simple, arresting and meaningful image. That clarity is what makes a piece of visual communication so memorable. It’s why it connects with so many people, regardless of what language they speak.
How many other images have had this sort of power? In terms of design as protest art, the first example that springs to mind is Seymous Chwast’s anti-war (link: http://www.moma.org/collection/works/6477?locale=en text: End Bad Breath poster) in protest at the US’s bombing of Hanoi in 1968.
We are all familiar with Shepard Fairey’s (link: http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/gallery/2012/oct/17/obamas-hope-the-work-of-shepard-fairey text: Hope poster), which he designed and printed in the run-up to the 2008 US presidential elections. It came to represent Obama’s campaign. It wasn’t, as I had previously thought, commissioned by the candidate’s campaign staff.
(image: https://www.superdream.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/Hope-poster.png alt: Hope poster)
Fairey’s poster, of course, echoed Jim Fitzpatrick’s ubiquitous image of Che (link: http://www.jimfitzpatrick.com/che/ text: Guevara).
Timeless pieces of design and illustration aren’t always politically-motivated, but have a powerful social importance. Designer Milton Glaser, not content with only producing one of the defining (link: http://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/sign-of-the-times-bob-dylan-95420/?no-ist text: posters of the sixties), also came up with the wildly influential and ubiquitous(link: https://www.miltonglaser.com/the-work/81/new-york-state-i-love-ny-campaign/ text: I love New York) logo in 1977. In a sort of amplification of the idea that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, Glaser’s heart is borrowed (i.e. shamelessly stolen) today by advertisers, artists, T-shirt printers and well, pretty much everyone, really.
(image: https://www.superdream.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/I-Love-NY.png alt: I Love NY)
How do images like these spread? Fitzpatrick’s Che Guevara image was based on a 1960 photograph by Alberto Korda and, in a 2007 BBC (link: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/7028598.stm text: article), it was suggested that “[t]he unchecked proliferation of the picture … is partly due to a political choice by Korda and others not to demand payment for non-commercial use of the image.”
The same is true of Jean Jullien’s Peace for Paris: he says anyone is free to use it. And many have. Of course, there’s much more to it than that. As evidenced in the case of Milton Glaser’s New York logo, people use imagery whether they have paid for it or not.
Jean Jullien’s reflexive illustration has helped unite people in their condemnation of the Paris attacks. It says what all of us are thinking, in such a way that people just share it, wordlessly, because it expresses our own thoughts so much more eloquently than we would’ve managed to ourselves.
It’s a reminder that what we – as advertisers and designers and illustrators – do is so powerful and can have such a positive effect. It’s hard to imagine, sitting hunched over our Macs, that what we do can capture hearts and minds, and even be an instrument for positive change. It’s good to know that visual communications aren’t just wallpaper.