Ikko Tanaka was a Japanese graphic designer. Tanaka is widely recognized for his prolific body of interdisciplinary work, which includes graphic identity and visual matter for brands and corporations including Seibu Department Stores, Mazda, Issey Miyake, Hanae Mori, and Expo 85. He is credited with developing the foundational graphic identity for lifestyle brand Muji, emphasizing the “no brand” quality of their products through unadorned, charming line drawings paired with straightforward slogans. His use of bold, polychromatic geometries and his harnessing of the dynamic visual potential of typography are undergirded by a sensitivity towards traditional Japanese aesthetics. Though keenly sensitive to historical precedents and established conventions, Tanaka nevertheless maintained a degree of playfulness in his work, manipulating color, scale, and form to reconfigure familiar iconographies into fresh and accessible visual representations. Tanaka is also widely recognized for his posters designs for Noh productions and other performances and exhibitions staged in Japan and beyond. He was active in realms of typography, exhibition design, and book design as well, and his publication Japan Style was released in 1980 alongside the Victoria and Albert Museum exhibition of the same name. As a leading figure in postwar Japanese design, Tanaka is also credited with playing a role in the professionalization and expansion of the discipline.
Authors
Tanaka Ikko
田中一光
다른 사람들
-
Majored in Aesthetics at university and admires musicians who compose and transcribe invisible music. Believes that love resembles music in its essence. During times of turbulence, instead of leaning on a prewritten life, he embraces her uncertainties and writes imperfect sentences as if transcribing music, striving to play his future more vividly. He is the publisher of ESSAI , an independent magazine for minimalists, and the author of Etudes on Love .
-
Park Ji-min
I graduated with a degree in Korean history and have lived in China for seven years, including three years as a student in Beijing, as well as one year in the United States. Just like translating Chinese, I enjoy traveling from place to place, meeting people, and writing. Fortunately, I have been able to continue doing what I love. I have translated over 50 books, including That Mountain, That Man, That Dog , China: Incredibly Close Yet Surprisingly Foreign , Landscape , and Reading Psychology … -
Ota Hiroshi
Born in 1968. Architect.Co-chair of Design Nouveau, Tokyo Picnic Club. Researcher at the International Center for Urban Regeneration Research, University of Tokyo, and lecturer at the Institute of Production Technology, University of Tokyo, where he studies urban regeneration cases around the world. Since 2011, he has been a lecturer at the Children’s Architecture School. -
Ahn Young-joo
Ahn Young-joo graduated from Hongik University, Department of Art, and received her doctorate from the same university with a thesis titled “Critical Discourse on Vernacular Design and Political Possibilities.” She has lectured on various design cultural theories such as design and material culture, design history, and craft theory at Hongik University and Konkuk University, and is currently an adjunct professor at Konkuk University’s Department of Industrial Design. Her publications include … -
Mike Evans
Mike Evans was a musician who released two singles on the Decca label and performed at the Cavern Club. In 1969, he was active in the Liverpool music scene and took the stage as a support band for Led Zeppelin and Bob Dylan. Afterwards, he transitioned to radio and contributed articles to magazines such as Sounds , Melody Maker , and The Guardian . Since the late 1980s, he has written and edited over 60 books on music, film, and fashion. -
Akasegawa Genpei
Akasegawa Genpei was a pseudonym of Japanese artist Akasegawa Katsuhiko (赤瀬川克彦), born March 27, 1937 in Yokohama. He used another pseudonym, Otsuji Katsuhiko (尾辻克彦), for literary works. A member of the influential artist groups Neo-Dada Organizers and Hi-Red Center, Akasegawa went on to maintain a multi-disciplinary practice throughout his career as an individual artist. In 1986, Akasegawa and his collaborators, Terunobu Fujimori and Shinbo Minami, to announce the formation of a new group: … -
Nat McCully
Nat McCully worked at Claris Corporation and Apple Computer in Japanese product development, specializing in text layout, from 1991 to 1998. He then joined Adobe Systems as the lead engineer for the Japanese version of InDesign, implementing text composition and Japanese publishing workflow features. He has worked on Flash, AIR, RMSDK, and advised the teams on Photoshop, Illustrator, and Adobe Text Engine (ATE). He now works with the Spark and the XD teams on worldwide extensibility and … -
Margaret Colquhoun
1947–2017. Goethean biologist and the Founding Director of the Life Science Trust, based at Pishwanton Wood in East Lothian, Scotland, at the foot of the Lammermuir Hills. She studied zoology and genetics with agricultural acience at Edinburgh University in the 1960s and worked there as a Research Associate in the 1970s on questions of population genetics and evolutionary biology. Later on, still carrying questions into the reality and relationship of taxonomy and evolution, she spent four … -
Tsuzuki Kyoichi
Kyoichi Tsuzuki was born in Tokyo in 1956. From 1976 to 1986, he was a freelance editor for the influential men’s fashion and lifestyle magazines Popeye and Brutus, where he wrote on contemporary art, design, urban living, and related topics. From 1989 to 1992, he published Art Random (Kyoto Shoin), a 102-volume series covering 1980s trends in global contemporary art. He continues to write and edit works on contemporary art, architecture, photography, design, and more. In 1993, he released the … -
Son Boo-kyung
Graduated from the Department of Art Theory at Hongik University and earned a master’s degree from the same university with research on spatial experiences in Minimalism and New Media Art. Co-translated works such as 40 Essential Readings in Art Theory and Criticism, 21 Terms for Media Criticism, and Postproduction. Published papers including “Jeffrey Shaw’s New Media Installations: Tension between Physical Space and Virtual Space”, “Medial Turns in Korean Avant-Garde”, and “Binghamton Letter: … -
Studio 3
Studio 3 is an in-school design agency at the Graphic Design Department of Westerdals School of Communication in Oslo (Norway). Studio 3 was established in 2002 and exists of a handpicked selection of 15 truly dedicated 3rd year’s graphic design students. -
Yoon Je-won
Yoon Je-won majored in geography education and aesthetics at Seoul National University and graduated from the Gumbap Academy. She was very interested in performing arts, art, and video, which she was exposed to in college, and was active in performance festivals and film festivals. She pursues natural translation by utilizing her long experience in video translation and is interested in various fields such as education, cooking, philosophy, art, and foreign languages, and strives to convey …