The first thing Jean Jullien did when he heard about the Paris attacks was reach for paper and his paintbrush, and sketch a simple image on his lap. Late on Friday evening, he posted it on to his Instagram and Twitter pages: a quick doodle of the Eiffel tower inside a circle, in an adaption of the peace symbol originally used by the nuclear disarmament movement.
Jullien is a graphic designer originally from Nantes but based in London. It wasn’t particularly an illustrator’s response, he said, “more an instinctive, human reaction”.
But the simplicity of his design, rendered in just a few brush strokes, did not diminish its power. In the days since the atrocities, his arresting image, captioned “Peace for Paris”, has been shared many thousands of times on social media worldwide, becoming a global expression of solidarity, resistance and hope for peace.
The illustrator, who trained at Central St Martins and the Royal College of Art, is currently on holiday in a location he prefers not to disclose. But in an interview with Wired, Jullien said he intended his design to be “an image for everyone”.
He admitted to being “almost embarrassed” at having attracted so much personal attention as a result of a massacre, but added: “It really shows that this is how we communicate not just as humans, but as a society. It can break down barriers.
“I think people have an instinctive sense of how to use these forms of communication. In cases like this, the things that need to spread, spread. And this seems to have been a very positive use of this form of hyper-communication.”
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