I’m the fourth designer of a “Hiroshima Appeals” poster to have been born in the postwar era, and I struggled even more than I imagined in deciding what kind of visual I should aim for.

What I ultimately decided on was a large balance weight, of the kind normally placed on a balance scale, sitting atop a pile of documents. Seventy years ago Hiroshima’s fate hung in the balance – and an atom bomb was dropped on it. The party that drops a bomb has an argument to justify its actions. In my graphic, the balancing weight named Hiroshima is a heavy one, and it presses the documents down greatly. The documents represent every kind of “argument” imaginable, and the weight of Hiroshima presses down on them. My intention was to express that there are some things that, no matter what argument might be put forward, one must never do. A lone butterfly is seen perched on the weight. I intended it as a reincarnation of the burning butterflies depicted in the very first “Hiroshima Appeals” poster, by Yusaku Kamekura.