Designing for Peace and Gratitude

Here goes the shameless promotion part of my blog!

At Christmas time in 2005 I began to design a Christmas card. I thought it would be nice to have the word Peace in the center and to use translations of the word into as many languages as I could find as a design around the center-piece word in my language, English.

As I began to research, I discovered that Fred, my late father's first name meant peace in three of the Scandinavian languages, Swedish, Norwegian and Danish. While we are not Scandinavian ourselves, I was so happy to see this for Papa was the most peaceable and kind person whom I have ever known.

A veteran of World War II and a member of the "greatest generation", my father was my hero and still is. I will post more about the Peace design, which is now available on both CafePress and Zazzle on a wide range of products.

I love this design dearly partly because it incorporates Papa's name and partly because it incorporates family history research, so that I included as many languages from my own heritage as I could find. The Irish Gaelic is there and so is the Scots Gaelic. The French (and Alsatian) as well as the German are there. Then I added the languages of friends and neighbors. I ran out of design space, since I was aware of the templates I would be using, long before I ran out of languages.

It is a pretty design with the words intertwining in the way that we all intertwine to form the community of the United States. I am a product of the "melting pot", but the like the image of a patchwork quilt better. The quilt is made from many non-matching pieces to form a pattern, to form a whole. It is quilted by many loving hands, each person bringing her (usually) own skill and talent to the task. The community, working together, makes the quilt. So to, the community, working together, honoring our heritages, can make the work of peace. I believe that this can be done in the country and in the world.

I hope that you will find this design pleasing and consider it for your organization's fundraiser as well as for your own purchasing for yourself or as a gift. Thanks so much.