Book Review: Signs for Peace: An Impossible Visual Encyclopedia

Give Peace a chance

Don't be put off by the word `Impossible...' on the cover, this refers to the on-going search for peace around the world. Though the Institute Design2Context in Zurich did rather set themselves an impossible task in attempting to define Peace visually but I think they succeeded. The 1752 illustrations in this thick book cover every interpretation from the last few decades.

The coverage of Peace is broken down to 105 alphabetical sections and in the broadest possible terms, for instance B covers: Balkans (27); Beauty (12); Bomb (30); Buddha (21); Burma (12). The images are all numbered and get a caption listing on the last page of each section. The range of material is as broad as the coverage: posters (a lot) photos, newspaper front pages, cartoons, logos, paintings, et cetera.

A lot of the graphics will be familiar to you especially the sections devoted to the more general titles like Amnesty International, Cold war, Mines or Weapon. Designers from around the world have created some amazing eye-catching work whereas the images shown in country sections (Afghanistan, Chechnya, Iran or Spain for example) are much less sophisticated, down to earth and primarily designed to be used locally.

I think the authors (and Lars Muller) are to be congratulated for producing a remarkable book of historic and contemporary peaceful graphic ideas.

Signs for Peace: An Impossible Visual Encyclopedia is available at Amazon (US | CA | UK | DE | FR | IT | ES | JP | CN)

The Contents, this will give an idea of the broad scope of the visual contents.

The captions for every graphic are all on the last page of each section.

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