グラフィック デザイン Made in Japan

グ ラ フィッ ク デ ザ イン Made In Japan A look at Japanese Graphic

Graphic History Japan is the only non-Western country in the world's major design powers, and Japan has only developed modern design since 1953. After a short period of 30 years, it has risen to one of the world's most important design powers in the 1980s. These are worth exploring and pondering.

1950s With economic development, Japan and the western countries began to have more contacts. The Japanese design community had more comprehensive review and understanding of Western modern design.

Among them, the constructivism exploration of geometric structures, especially the analysis and use of vertical and horizontal structures, have a profound impact on the Japanese design community.

Japan is a nation that is good at learning.

It was able to develop its own system by combining the experience of others with its own culture. This is a very remarkable skill.

From the perspective of traditional design, we can see the influence of China and South Korea̶the eastern aesthetic. Looking from the modern design perspective, we can see the impact of the United States, Germany, Italy and other countries on it.

"Japan is an Eastern country with a long history. Its design is very different from the Western in both the traditional perspective and the national aesthetic standpoint. In order to win the international market, Japan also has to vigorously develop its internationalism. At the same time, the Japanese design community pays great attention in protecting the traditional and national aspects in its design, so that the national and traditional essence of the country will not be affected by economic activities and international trade competition.

As a result, Japanese graphic design naturally forms two major categories for overseas and domestic: For designs aimed at foreign markets, the international image and international graphic design methods that can be recognized internationally are often used to gain broader understanding.

For domestic graphic design, it is based on traditional methods, including traditional patterns and traditional layouts, especially using Chinese characters (Kanji) as the design basis.

1975 The Department of Crafts in Tokyo University of the Arts is reorganized into a new Department of Crafts and the Department of Design.

This is a milestone for the education of graphic design in Japan. Moreover, with the financial support from the government, more and more universities started to establish design majors, allowing more young people to be educated.

1980s By the early 1980s, Japan had become one of the world's most important design powers. Its graphic design also switched from imitation to innovation. Instead of emphasizing the harmonicity of eastern and western culture, it shifted to emphasize the essence of national culture and art.

1990s

Postmodernism With the rise of postmodernism, Japanese modern graphic designers began to break the classical, authoritative graphic design and try to make new interpretations of modern graphic design in the period of the alternation of old and new value systems.The improvement in electronic devices allowed designers to be more unrestrained, they were able to produce content that are more diversified and open.

Ikko Tanaka Morisawa & Co 1986

In the early 1990s, Japan's bubble economy caused a series of social problems. Modern graphic designers in Japan have begun to think about the social responsibility they have as graphic designers and started to use art to respond to some social issues, hoping to influence people's perceptions about economic recovery. During this period, designers put their focus on this humanistic spirit instead of design techniques.

Future?

I believed that Japanese graphic design will still stick to the idea of minimalism and emphasize the use of blank space in the near future. Blank space gives us the ability to imagine far beyond the details of nature.

Japanese design will also pay attention to little details in daily life̶ the wisdom of the design is to discover the hidden possibility behind everything,

龜倉雄策

Yusaku Kamekura

KEYWORDS:nationalism, modernism, solid shapes

1915-1997

Yusaku Kamekura Yusaku Kamekuras poster

After WW2 ended, Kamagura Yusaku devoted himself to advancing the Japanese design industry. With his promotion in the importance of design, the Japanese design community abandoned the old concept which is that graphic design must rely on hand-painted forms. People gradually change their perceptions in art and no longer see designers as a a handicraft occupation with low social status.

The international status of Japanese design has also steadily improved.

Yusaku Kamekura Tokyo 1964 1962

Yusaku Kamekura Peacefully Use Atomic Energy 1956

As a graphic designer, Kamagura Yusaku is known for the ability to combine and balance modernization and nationalization in his works. He emphasized both international visual elements and symbolism from the Japanese culture. As the initiator of modern Japanese poster design, he introduced a modernist design system from the Bauhaus Academy, successfully broke the single model of Japanese traditional culture, changed the traditional aesthetic view, and opened up the design industry for modernization.

Inspired work

Kamekura uses alot of primary colors in his works. He also tends to limit the amount of colors presented on each piece to make sure that everything looks simple but on point. Therefore, I made a poster using only 4 colors, including black and white. The red eye on the center was inspired by his poster design for the National Museum of Modern Art.

福田繁雄

KEYWORDS:solid, bright colors, positive&negative space

Shigeo Fukuda 1932-2009

Shigeo Fukuda Victory1945

Shigeo Fukuda Gun

Shigeo Fukuda 1982 Earth Day poster

Shigeo Fukudas early experience in comic book creation gave his design a strong sense of humor.

He often used positive and negative space, and yin-yang techniques to present the characteristics of illusion, making the work uniquely ironic and entertaining. His words contain less nationalism, more internationalism.

Shigeo Fukuda Antiwar poster

Shigeo Fukuda Antiwar poster

One of the characteristics of modern Japanese graphic design is the amount of text used in the work. Designers usually dont use text descriptions, and basic titles are sometimes optional too. Shigeo Fukuda is one example.

He is specialized in using visual principles to create optical illusions.

Inspired work

People often say that Fukuda is a designer of wit and allusion. This is pretty true because his antiwar posters and environmental advocacy posters all shows strong humor while conveying meaningful social messages. I decided to keep my inspired work as simple as his, but included this reected image of the sun and branches using only red and white, which are the colors for Japans ag.

永井一正

Kazumasa Nagai 1929̶

KEYWORDS:traditional elements, illustration& photography

1960s and 70s, is the beginning of Nagai Masahiros creating career. During this period, he was influenced by the abstract composition thinking of Kamakura Yusaku, therefore his designs were mostly in geometric abstract styles. When he became mature in the art field (which is around mid 1980s), he transformed from geometric style to handmade designs with traditional, eastern aesthetics.

He incorporated Chinese artistic elements and Japanese traditional elements into his creations. This is why we often see elements like animals and plants appear in his works.

Kazumasa Nagai Kazumasa Nagai 1978

Nagai uses great amount of vertical and horizontal lines, supplemented with photography and illustrations in his works. His design techniques and style was also originated from these traditional Japanese folk decorative.

Kazumasa Nagai Poster for the magazine TENRI 1981

Inspired work

As I ve mentioned in Nagais story, he used a lot of vertical and horizontal lines in his works to make sure the design looks organized. So I created this grid like/patch like pattern as the base, and put a red circle on the center, highlighting the traditonal aspect of Nagais work. The use of color red is very common among Japanese graphic designers, probably because of their emphasis on natioanlism.

田中一光 Ikko Tanaka

KEYWORDS:traditional, nationalism

1930-2002

The core of Tanaka's design is the relationship between surface and space. His use of the grid system shows a high degree of order and neatness, which is a characteristic of internationalism design. At the same time, he prefers to use similar shades & bright geometric figures, as well as traditional Japanese elements based on traditional Japanese landscapes, drama scenes, etc.

Ikko Tanaka, 国民文化祭 1991

Tanaka Ikko asMuji's first creative director also pushed himself in exploring the most suitable form that shows the product essence. He ve done numerous poster designs for MUJI, combing aesthetic with the product itself.

Kenya Hara, Nihon Buyo 1981

Inspired work

The core of Tanaka's design is the use of geometric shapes and grid system. Its just amazing that he was able to present traditional Japanese elements through simple shapes and blocks of colors. I pulled out some commonly used colors from Tanakas works, and did a new poster using just circles, triangles and squares. I focused on the mountain &moon elements from traditional Japanese art, and tried to create a more fun and enojyable poster that looks like a puzzle.

横尾忠则

Tadanori Yokoo

KEYWORDS: Japanese pop art

1936̶

Tadanori Yokoo, Koshimaki-Osen 1966

Tadanori Yokoo, The Rose-Colored Dance, A La Maison De M. Civecawa 1966

Tadanori Yokkos work shows great individuation. The combination of surrealism and Dadaism presented a unique Japanese pop style under the wonderful fusion. People often call him "the Andy Warhol of Japan".

This new pop art style severely breaks the typical Japanese modernist style, which caused controversy back then.

From the various forms of expression presented in his works in different periods we can see that his works are not entirely based on the traditional Japanese culture, but more of the techniques of western pop art. He is always opened minded. His unique emotional world along with his understanding and thinking of human nature were all shown through his works of art.

Inspired work

Tadanori Yokoo used a lot of found materials in his works. He preferred to do collage which combined photographs with a huge amount of text. For my inspired work, I didnt include as much elements as Yokoo usually does, but I did use colors that have this vintage feeling. I also added noise and tapes to imitate the printed texture back in the 80s.

原研哉

Kenya Hara

KEYWORDS: Experiences of objects , sense of touch

1958̶

Kenya Haras design concepts and style came from his unique vision of life. He was able to incorporate the five sense with the spirit of Japanese Zen. He was good at guiding consumers' consumption desire by emphasizing the traditional cultural customs. Hara wanted to produce invisible design that seems like nothing but actually organic. His concepts can be seen from his designs for MUJI. As the art director of MUJI, Hara kept push this idea of invisible design and brand-less. This idea is beyond simplicity and minimalism, and it can become anything.

Kenya Hara, Twenty-three Posters 1981/2017 2017

Kenya Hara, Subtle 2014

In one of his interviews, Hara talked about his early years in the design field. When he was young, he put alot of efforts in showing off his design skills to the outside world. But as he became more experienced, he learned to gradually converge his design techniques and present the deepest philosophy in the simplest way. This is how he got to the position he has now. Moreover, as a modern graphic design who is still active in the industry, Hara didnt limit himself in just graphic design, instead, he explores in various fields including product design, branding etc.

Inspired work

In Kenya Haras book White , he talked about how white doesnt refer to the color white, but the perception of white. We dont need to look for white, but to ďŹ nd a way to experience white. So for my inspired work, I decided to make a new book cover for White. I did a gradiant background which almost blend with the title. This white to grey gradiant might seem meaningless at ďŹ rst, but the change in the angles of the gradiant actually indicate where the light was from, which I found interesting.