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Seymour Chwast Enlists Brand Community To Crowdfund New Antiwar Book

This article is more than 7 years old.

The imperatives of keeping a brand alive are to be agile, curious and stay relevant throughout your timeline. Eighty-four-year old designer Seymour Chwast is proving out those qualities, as he launches his Kickstarter campaign today.

Seymour Chwast

One of the USA’s most celebrated illustrator-designers, Seymour asks everyone to help publish his new book of antiwar images, Seymour Chwast at War with War: An Illustrated Timeline of 5000 Years of Conquests, Invasions, and Terrorist Attacks. The book is edited by renowned graphic design writer, Steven Heller and includes an introduction by former editor and publisher of The Nation, Victor Navasky.

At War with War is the continuation of a lifelong theme for Chwast, who designed anti-establishment posters during the 1960s. Posters declaring, “War Is Good For Business, Invest Your Son,” “Protest Against The Rising Tide Of Conformity” and “End Bad Breath” (with bombs dropping out of Uncle Sam’s mouth) were part of 1960s popular visual iconography.

“We were involved in a stupid war in Vietnam,” says Chwast during a telephone interview. “It was obvious. And eventually the rest of the country realized there was no reason to be there. It was awful, as it is with most wars.”

War is a never-ending theme in art. Goya created his “The Disasters Of War” sketches. Picasso painted “Guernica.” In his new book, Seymour Chwast creates prints and drawings along a timeline that runs from 3300 BCE, and never ends.

Why a timeline? “The point I am trying to make is that things have not changed,” says Chwast. “Deadly conflict as a way of settling disputes that has been around for 5,000 years. Haven’t we learned anything? People love war, they make heroes. They glorify war.”

In Chwast’s timeline, the paradox and illogic of war unfolds. An example. In the timeline, former allies from a 19th century war become enemies virtually overnight, a reversal that becomes recognizable and mindful for today’s viewer.

“Everything has always been the same,” said Marcus Aurelius, two thousand years ago. “It makes no difference whether you see the same things recur in a hundred years or two hundred.”

In 1954, Seymour Chwast and Milton Glaser started New York City’s famous Push Pin Studios. Push Pin innovated with bold graphics and revolutionized almost every visual medium available at that time: posters, advertisements, book and magazine covers, album jackets, product packaging, typography, and children’s books.

Filled with Manhattan’s most illustrious designers and illustrators, including Edward Sorel, Reynold Ruffins, Paul Davis and others, Push Pin Studios developed a unique look and sensibility that became recognizably “Push Pin.”

In the early 1970s, an exhibition titled “The Push Pin Style” was held at the Louvre in Paris.

According to Steven Heller, co-chair of design at New York’s School of Visual Arts, “Chwast’s legacy is his wit, humor and compassion expressed through public art and graphic design. He lifted the weight of seriousness off the things that make us think and, sometimes fear. He is a commentator whose work both cautions, teaches and entertains. What more can you ask for?”

What if we’re waiting for a cure for war itself? “While we’re waiting, Seymour makes us ponder,” offers Heller.

In the Kickstarter video, Chwast (who turns 85 this year) is shown busy at work designing, drawing, even carving a woodblock for one of the designs that appears in his book.

Designer Seymour Chwast. Used with permission.

“I love doing books in print,” says Chwast. “Ink and paper evolve a story in ways that electronic books can’t. It’s a project I generated myself and I fell right into it. I hope it has meaning for people.”

The book is equal parts timeline and illustrations. “It’s interesting, going through the different wars, says Chwast. I chose particular wars to illustrate, and used my best talents to illustrate those wars that were best for that purpose. The process was very satisfying for me.”

Chwast hesitates and laughs. “Of course, there’s no happy ending.”

As the launch press release for At War With War declares, Chwast “has used his signature blend of design, illustration, and social commentary to wage a campaign against war.”

You can join the movement by checking out the At War With War Kickstarter today.

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