The hippie movement of the 1960s and 70s is remembered for its music, its communes, its festivals, and its radical politics. But perhaps the most enduring legacy of hippie culture is its visual language—the symbols it embraced, reshaped, and spread across the world. The peace sign painted on jackets, the lotus flower printed on posters, the swirling mandalas in psychedelic colors: these images continue to resonate today, not only as nostalgic markers of an era but as enduring emblems of spiritual searching, resistance, and artistic freedom.
The Birth of the Peace Sign
Few symbols are as universally recognized as the peace sign. Designed in 1958 by Gerald Holtom for the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, the symbol combined the semaphore signals for “N” and “D.” For the hippie movement, it became something larger than its original context. It was worn on pendants, painted on vans, and scrawled across protest posters.
The power of the peace sign lies in its simplicity. It requires no words, no translation, yet it speaks to an urgent human desire: to reject war and embrace harmony. In art prints and posters today, it remains one of the strongest visual reminders that symbols can condense entire philosophies into a single mark.
Mandalas and Eastern Spirituality
The hippie fascination with Eastern spirituality opened the door to a flood of symbolic borrowing and adaptation. Mandalas, traditionally sacred diagrams in Hindu and Buddhist practice, were rediscovered as psychedelic maps of consciousness. Their circular symmetry and radiant patterns resonated with hippie ideals of unity, wholeness, and transcendence.
In visual art, mandalas became backdrops for concerts, patterns on textiles, and motifs in posters. The mandala’s hypnotic geometry mirrored the altered states of mind celebrated by the counterculture. More importantly, it represented a spiritual alternative to Western materialism, embodying the search for harmony between inner and outer worlds.
The Lotus and the Language of Flowers
Another Eastern symbol adopted by hippie culture was the lotus flower. In Hindu and Buddhist traditions, the lotus represents purity rising from the mud, spiritual awakening, and the unfolding of consciousness. For the hippies, it was both a decorative motif and a manifesto. To wear or display the lotus was to reject conventional society and embrace a more spiritual, nature-connected existence.
Flowers more broadly carried symbolic weight during the era. The phrase “flower power” turned blossoms into emblems of peaceful resistance, a way to transform confrontation into beauty. Holding out daisies during anti-war protests, hippies used floral symbolism as both softness and strength—fragile yet defiant.
Psychedelia and Cosmic Icons
Beyond Eastern spirituality, hippie symbolism was shaped by psychedelic experience. Stars, suns, and cosmic spirals populated posters and album covers. Astrology surged in popularity, with zodiac signs appearing on tapestries and wall prints. These celestial symbols suggested not only cosmic mystery but also interconnectedness—the idea that every individual was part of a larger, universal design.
Artists like Victor Moscoso and Wes Wilson infused their concert posters with these psychedelic motifs, turning everyday advertising into spiritual and sensory journeys. Today, when we encounter wall art that shimmers with cosmic motifs, we are still touching that hippie legacy of seeing the universe as a living, symbolic tapestry.
Symbolism as Protest and Lifestyle
What makes hippie symbolism powerful is its fusion of art, protest, and lifestyle. The peace sign, the mandala, the lotus—they were not merely aesthetic choices. They were declarations of identity and resistance. To decorate one’s room or body with these symbols was to step outside mainstream culture, to join a community where art, politics, and spirituality were inseparable.
In this sense, hippie art continues to inspire symbolic art today. Posters, prints, and decor that incorporate peace emblems, mandalas, or floral icons do more than decorate—they invite viewers into a lineage of meaning. They remind us that art can carry stories, beliefs, and aspirations, reaching beyond beauty into philosophy.
The Lasting Legacy of Hippie Symbols
Decades later, hippie symbols remain remarkably resilient. The peace sign still appears in street art and on fashion runways. Mandalas are tattooed on skin and hung as wall tapestries in student dorms. The lotus continues to bloom across art prints, yoga studios, and design.
These symbols endure because they speak to timeless human desires: the search for peace, the longing for unity, the need for transcendence. They are not relics of the past but living icons that adapt to new contexts while retaining their resonance.
For contemporary art and decor, embracing hippie symbolism is not about nostalgia—it is about continuing a dialogue. By hanging a print with a mandala, a lotus, or a cosmic emblem, one participates in a visual tradition that has always sought to unite the aesthetic and the spiritual, the personal and the collective.
