Hiroshima, Japan

For those involved in the peace movement around the globe, thoughts this week turn once again to the horrors of Monday, August 6, 1945—when at 08:15 the first nuclear weapon ever deployed on human beings (a bomb named Little Boy) was dropped on Hiroshima by the crew of the American B-29 bomber Enola Gay. Three days later, at 11:02 on Wednesday, August 9, Nagasaki was the target of the world’s first plutonium bomb (named Fat Man) dropped by the U.S. B-29 Superfortress Bockscar, flown by the crew of 393rd Squadron.

In 2005, I was one of 24 designers invited to contribute posters for Lest We Forget: Canadian Designers on War, an initiative marking the 60th anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki (I’ve posted on that previously, here). Michael Surtees attended that show opening at the Citadel Theatre in Edmonton—see his flickr photo gallery from the evening here.

Image above: a moving poster designed by the late great Yusaku Kamekura, considered by many to be the father of graphic design in Japan. The poster “depicts a cluster of multicoloured burning butterflies falling from the sky, caught in the flash of an atomic blast, their wings alight with hot red and orange flames burning like streaks of blood from their delicate wings—the beauty and grace of the image serves to undermine the horror and tragedy of war.” Hiroshima Appeals is a poster series that appears annually, initiated by Japan Graphic Designers Association for the Hiroshima International Cultural Foundation.