Jean Jullien
French graphic designer, illustrator, video artist and photographer
Jean Jullien (born 14 March 1983) is a French graphic designer who created a variation of a classic Peace symbol which was modified to resemble the Eiffel Tower in the wake of the November 2015 terrorist attacks in Paris. The image swiftly became viral through social media and news coverage of affirmation of worldwide sympathies and solidarity against terrorism.
Quotes
editSlate interview (2015)
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- This is what I do, I draw, I reacted graphically, just drawing something spontaneously with pen and paper and then sharing it as a raw reaction. With so much violence and tragedy — we just want a bit of peace.
- I do graphics commercially for a living, but when I get affected by things, when something happens in the world, I usually communicate online with my drawings.
- I just wanted something symbolic, something that everybody could understand easily, and everybody could share regardless of where they’re from and whether they’re a keen observer of illustration usually. I just wanted something universal. … a few people from different places follow my work, and I enjoy communicating to them, usually for happier reasons. What I do in general is try to communicate with people — and I’m aware that the more you want to communicate to a larger audience, the more universal and simple you have to be. It’s an image for everyone. It’s not my image — it’s not a piece of work that I’m proud of or anything — I didn’t create it to get credit or benefit from it. I just wanted to express myself, and from experience I know that through social media people like expressing themselves, or need to express themselves. It is somehow quite organic, the way these things go — you can’t really plan on it. I would just say that if people have used it so much, and if they felt like it was useful for them to share, then the image worked and I’m happy, so to speak, even though happiness is not really a thought that springs to my mind in such horrible times.
Quotes about Jullien
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- The image started showing up on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram within hours of the attacks in Paris: a simple, slightly off-kilter rendering of the Eiffel Tower framed by a circle so as to look like a peace sign. Most people who shared the image, which has since become the dominant visual symbol of grief over the attacks, probably didn’t know where it originated, or who was responsible for coming up with it.… the creator of the drawing was a French illustrator named Jean Jullien, who posted it to his Twitter page around midnight Paris-time with the caption “Peace for Paris,” and watched it swiftly take flight. Jullien, whose work tends to be marked by a light touch and a breezy, sometimes high concept sense of humor, has made a habit of reacting to the news in graphic form before, drawing pictures to mark the shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, the legalization of gay marriage in Ireland, and the massacre at Charlie Hebdo in Paris last January.
- In the wake of Friday night’s Paris attacks, which left over 120 people dead in six incidents around the city, one poignant sketch began circulating social media to honor the victims.
The symbol, including Paris’ iconic Eiffel Tower in the form of a peace sign, shows solidarity with the French capital and has been shared widely along with the hashtags #PrayforParis and #jesuisparis
- Just in case our enemies needed another reason to despise us, today the inactivist group Somnolent Tilty-Headed Wankers for Peace launched an exciting new graphic: the same old clapped-out hippie peace symbol but incorporating the Eiffel Tower (right)! Isn't that a cool, stylish way of showing how saddy-saddy-sadcakes you are about all those corpses in the streets of Paris? It's already gone viral! And that's all that matters, isn't it? Our enemies use social media to distribute snuff videos as a means of recruitment. We use it to confirm to them how passive and enervated we are: What was it the last time blood ran in the streets of Paris? Oh, yeah, a pencil - for all those dead cartoonists. But, given that blood in the streets of Paris looks like becoming a regular event, it helps to have something of general application. What about, ooh, a tricolor with a blue tear at the end? No, better yet: a peace symbol with a croissant in the middle. No, wait... What's that? All you are saying is give peace a chance? But what, in fact, are the chances of peace for Paris and France? What are the odds? Oh, sorry. All they were saying is give peace a chance. And, having said it, they've gone back to sleep until the next atrocity requires another stupid hashtag or useless avatar. Parisians should be revolted by this third-rate gimmick, and revile those who created and promoted it.
- Mark Steyn, "Cool Civilizational Death Wish Goes Viral!", On the Air (14 November 2015)
