Donal McLaughlin Jr.

Donal McLaughlin Jr.

1907–2009

“I dreamed once of seeing my designs in brick and stone,” Donal McLaughlin Jr. once said. “Instead, the thing I’m best known for is a button.” That button, however, bore the emblem of the United Nations. With slight modifications it is the one used today, recognized around the world.

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The son of an architect, McLaughlin graduated from Yale University and joined the National Park Service, said Yale Alumni Magazine. That “led to positions in the New York offices of the famed industrial designers Walter Dorwin Teague and Raymond Loewy.” McLaughlin worked on the U.S. Steel and Kodak exhibits for the 1939 New York World’s Fair; he also helped design the interiors of Tiffany & Co.’s new flagship store in Manhattan. During World War II he headed up the graphics presentation branch of the Office of Strategic Services, leading a team that “produced everything from Army orientation films to cigarette-paper packages printed with diagrammatic instructions for derailing German trains.” As the war ended, McLaughlin’s group created visual displays used to prosecute war criminals at Nuremberg and even drew up “the distinctive arrangement of the courtroom itself.”

In spring 1945, as delegates from 50 countries prepared to convene at the newly formed U.N. in San Francisco, McLaughlin was charged with designing brochures, placards, and other items for the conference, said The New York Times. The toughest assignment was a badge: McLaughlin had to fit a memorable image and 10 words of text “on a round button measuring just 11⁄16 inches across.” His team came up with many failed prototypes, including one that “showed a chimney-like brick structure, bound by the ‘mortar of cooperation.’” Finally, McLaughlin devised “a round emblem showing the continents against circular lines of latitude and vertical lines of longitude.” When one staff member “softened the image by adding laurel branches,” McLaughlin objected, arguing that “the laurel symbolized victory.” So he substituted the symbol of peace, olive branches. The U.N. adopted his design as its official emblem on Dec. 7, 1946.

McLaughlin, who maintained a private practice in the Washington area for decades, always remained proud of his U.N. icon. “It’s like an old, warm friend,” he said in 2007. “I still believe that the U.N. is really our best hope for world peace.” He is survived by three children.