Charles Hively, the publisher of 3×3 and I have a long history together so I was more than happy to say yes when he asked me to participate in the I H8 WAR campaign.
People may have forgotten but my career as a 24 year old received a boost from an anti war poster for the 40th anniversary of Hiroshima which received a silver medal from the Art Director’s Club of New York.
My approach for this poster was to catch the idea of the cumulative human cost of war so I knew I wanted to play with a repeating pattern of skulls in a way which surprised and was strangely visually appealing. A deadly tree metaphor seemed the right approach for the never ending cost of war.
I did three variations and since I trust Charles, let him choose which poster he preferred. He chose the version with a bullet as a seed because he felt it had the impact and flow to work with other posters in the exhibit.
Much thanks to Charles for a creatively and morally stimulating project.
Original version without the bullet.
Alternate “winter” version.
