Xaide’s Blog

It’s generally not such a big surprise to find any of these words in works of social interaction, diplomatic institution policies, laws and belief systems. Question is, how do we get from the 4 word PLUR acronym meaning peace, love, unity and respect to a visual pattern that occurs across centuries, is included in visual designs and depicted on walls, posters, books, t-shirts, but most importantly in people’s minds.

Today I am going to continue a discussion we had about using multiple fonts and colours with respect to some Web 2.0 design trends, this time focusing our attention on colour (diversity) and why would someone incorporate it into design. First, let’s define PLUR:

Peace and Love are themes that were highly appreciated by hippies, if you do recall. Even Unity, although not pinpointed, came into discussion: “Imagine no possessions, I wonder if you can, No need for greed or hunger, A brotherhood of man. Imagine all the people sharing all the world.” John Lennon (Imagine). Colour was also very popular among hippies, well, a part of them, at least

Unity, as a word, came with the rave movement and it was whispered around very often until DJ Frankie Bones, at a party he gave, witnessed the start of a fight and shouted: “If you guys don’t show some peace, love and unity right now I’m going to break your faces.” He didn’t mention “respect” explicitly. That came later, supposedly in a discussion group - alt.music.rave.

Thus, PLUR - Peace. Love. Unity. Respect. originates in the oldskool (1990-1995) rave movement which consisted of underground parties with colourfully dressed people, some Ecstasy use and lots of electronic dance music.
Rave itself is an electronic musical genre that is responsible for the outgrowth of Trance, Drum and Bass and Hardcore, among some other musical genres. But much earlier than the 90′, “rave” made its appearance in the English vocabulary in the 50-60’s describing wild bohemian parties. A raver would be the gregarious party-goer, the type often described as being “the life and soul of the party”. Ravers were really the party animals of today which obviously had nothing to do with an affiliation to electronic music, but with having fun and spreading fun.

So colour, music, party, freedom, fun and enjoying life stick to the PLUR motif. Who craves for PLUR? Millions. Billions. Gazillions and who knows, even more… Why? Because we all want to enjoy life and be happy. And colour is linked to that.

Let’s take a look at what peace, love, unity and respect stand for in the PLUR acronym:

Peace - Hostility typically serves no purpose other than to defend an ego that is lacking inner peace.

Love - Acts and feelings of goodwill towards all others are a moral imperative with their own rewards.

Unity - We are all united in the human condition and as social beings, the feeling of connectedness with others is the ultimate end to our efforts.

Respect - A person must show regard for the feelings of others through their actions and inaction and show respect to someone regardless of the cultural and belief differences involved.

PLUR is thus more than just a trend or a slogan that comes with listening rock & roll or rave music. PLUR is a religion and multicoloured images are one way of manifesting or declaring your belief, just like wearing a cross usually means you’re Christian. Moreover, PLUR spans Christianity& Buddhism which make up more than 30% of the religious population. If you look at individual items that make up PLUR, you could squeeze in 90% of the world’s population, since we all want peace from time to time, seek love and respect and consider unity as an ideal.

So, to answer a question I’ve dared to put forward in the other blog post about multicoloured design - “is the association with the colour-pattern just eye and mind-catching so that people are drawn to these brands like flies towards light in the night?” - yes, multicoloured designs are eye and mind-catching and also trigger empathy and colligation.

And yes, we do want our clients to like us, to want us and to feel like we are the same.

Tags: brand, color, colour, design, design trends, fun, love, multiple fonts, peace, plur, rave, raver, respect, unity

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