Japanese graphic design from the 1950s-1980s. Modernism blending Western influence with Japanese visual tradition. Documented in the Design Reviewed archive.
Japanese graphic design of the postwar decades is one of the most distinctive and original bodies of work in the history of the discipline, a tradition that absorbed the visual language of European and American modernism and transformed it into something entirely its own. The designers who emerged from Japanese art schools in the 1950s and 60s brought a visual sensibility shaped by calligraphy, woodblock printing, and Buddhist iconography to the geometric rigour of the Swiss International Style. The result was work of extraordinary formal intensity, posters by Yusaku Kamekura, Ikko Tanaka, Kiyoshi Awazu, and Shigeo Fukuda that are recognisably modernist and yet unmistakably Japanese.
Advertising Design, Design Archive Feature, Members Only Content, Regional Histories
An overview of Graphic Design from Japan from the year 1960, complemented by 50 scanned images from Annual of Advertising Art in Japan 1960 (Bijyutu Shuppan Sha, 1960).
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Design Archive Feature, Designer Profiles, Members Only Content, Regional Histories
Tadashi Ohashi was at the forefront of Japan's postwar design movement, with his illustrations widely celebrated. In 1952, he became the chief designer for Meiji Seika Confectionery, producing some of his most renowned work.
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Design Archive Feature, Designer Profiles, Members Only Content, Regional Histories
Ryuichi Yamashiro (山城隆) was a Japanese graphic designer and artist, born in Osaka in 1920. He belonged to the same generation of pioneering Japanese designers as Kohei Sugiura, Kiyoshi Awazu, Yoshio Hayakawa, Yūsaku Kamekura, Kazumasa Nagai, and Ikko Tanaka.
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Design Archive Feature, Designer Profiles, Members Only Content, Regional Histories
Kiyoshi Awazu (粟津) was a renowned Japanese graphic designer, known for his contributions across various creative fields including poster design, architecture, set design, filmmaking, and illustration. His unique style was commissioned by theatre groups, design and architecture magazines and various organisations for the covers of book covers and posters.
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Design Archive Feature, Designer Profiles, Members Only Content, Regional Histories
Kohei Sugiura’s work spans an impressive range of mediums, including record jackets, publication covers, posters, exhibition catalogues, and stamps. He perfectly merged functionality and data visualisation with aesthetics. Drawing on his background in architecture, Sugiura applied a systematic, programmatic methodology to graphic design, similar to the approach of Swiss designer Karl Gerstner.
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Design Archive Feature, Designer Profiles, Members Only Content, Regional Histories
Takenobu Igarashi was born in 1944 in Tokyo and is best known for his typographic work as both a sculptor and designer. His work in over 30 permanent museum collections and continues to inspire designers today.
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Design Archive Feature, Designer Profiles, Members Only Content, Regional Histories
Yoshio Hayakawa is one of Japan’s most influential post-war poster designers. His work represents a fusion of traditional Japanese art and European modernism often using soft, poetic brushstrokes and refined colour palettes and capturing the elegance of Japanese aesthetics while integrating the clean lines and bold visual language of Western design.
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Design Archive Feature, Designer Profiles, Members Only Content, Regional Histories
Yūsaku Kamekura had a long list of clients and as well as cover designs, he worked across logo and brand design, packaging, book design, and other printed matter, but he is particularly known for his poster design. His clients included Nikon, Tokyo 1964 Olympics, Meiji and TDK.
Read ArticleExplore designers central to postwar Japanese graphic design including Yusaku Kamekura, Ikko Tanaka, Shigeo Fukuda, Kiyoshi Awazu, and Tadanori Yokoo. See also Japanese graphic design history and 1960s graphic design history.
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Design Archive Feature, Designer Profiles, Ephemera, Members Only Content
Beyond his books, Dick Bruna's vivid colour and simplified forms found their way onto posters, packaging, murals and stamps, many of which feature in my growing collection.
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Members Only Content, Design Archive Feature, Designer Profiles
An article on Valentin Zietara , originally in German, published in Gebrauchsgraphik, 10, 1930, written by H K Frenzel translated by E. T. Scheffauer
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Members Only Content, Designer Profiles, Studios & Collectives
A 1903-1904 article on Die Steglitzer Werkstatt, originally in German, published in Deutsche Kunst und Dekoration, Vol. XIII, October 1903–March 1904.
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Regional Histories, Ephemera, Illustration, Members Only Content
A collected visual record of the Kanto, Chubu and Tohoku Lottery tickets.
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Designer Profiles, Members Only Content, Movements
April Greiman is known for her experimental approach to graphic design, her role in the development of Californian New Wave and being one of the first designers to fully embrace the computer in her work.
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Illustration, Ephemera, Members Only Content, Regional Histories
A collected visual record of the first eight years of Japan’s Rural Medical Care Promotion Lottery.
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