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
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He graduated from Yonsei University’s Department of Korean Language and Literature and received his Ph.D. from the same graduate school. He was a researcher at Tokyo University of Foreign Studies and is currently a university lecturer and translator. He is the author of The Renaissance Man Kim Seung-ok (co-author), and the translator of I Am a Cat , Kokoro , The Light of Illusion, Story of the Crusades, Cut Off, Those Praying Hands, The Birth of Form, We All Return Home,* and other books. …
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Kim Ji-hun
He graduated from Hongik University’s Department of Mechanical Engineering and Hongik University’s International Design Academy (IDAS) and received his Ph.D. from KAIST’s Department of Industrial Design. He was a visiting researcher at the Hasso Plattner Institute of Design at Stanford University in the U.S. Since 2013, he has been working as an examiner at the Korean Intellectual Property Office’s Trademark and Design Office. -
Ezio Manzini
Ezio Manzini is a world-renowned scholar in the field of design for sustainability. In 2009, he founded the DESIS Network, a network of design universities dedicated to social innovation design, to connect design universities around the world and revitalize the discourse on social innovation design. As a longtime professor of design at Politecnico di Milano, Italy, he conducted research on design for sustainability and expanded the scope of design education by launching new design majors such … -
Yang Da-sol
She is a writer, a vegan advocate, and the host of the writing community Kkabul Writing Room . She has authored books such as A Heart That Doesn’t Become Poor , Anyway, Friends , and A Proper Courtesy . -
Hori Michihiro
Hori Michihiro is a lacquer craftsman, manga artist and author from Toyama. He graduated from Takaoka National College (now University of Toyama, School of Art and Design) with a major in lacquerware and Ishikawa Prefectural Wajima-nuri Lacquerware Training Institute. After working for a cultural property restoration company and as a craftsman in a lacquer workshop, he made his debut as a manga artist in 2003 and has been active in the fields of lacquer and manga ever since. He is the author of … -
Kim Kai-chun
He is an architect and designer, a professor at Kookmin University’s College of Architecture, and has specialized in architecture and Seon (Zen) philosophy. He has been working on architectural planning and design, painting and writing with ideas that cross over from Korean tradition and Seon thought to contemporary aesthetics. He has published books on Eastern architectural aesthetics such as “Architecture of Ming Ming” and “Lao Tzu and the Idea of Spatial Formation” and papers on the … -
AG Typography Institute
AG Typography Institute was founded in 2012 as an affiliated institute of Ahn Graphics. We designs and develops typefaces based on in-depth studies, and aims to create new typeface culture and trend. -
서울미디어시티비엔날레팀
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Kim Yu-yeong
She is a Ph.D. candidate at Yonsei University’s HCI Lab. She is currently working with HAII (a company specializing in digital therapeutics) on the planning, development, and clinical trials of a digital therapeutic for language therapy targeting stroke patients. She has directly experienced the A to Z of creating digital therapeutics and researches how patients can better and continuously benefit from digital therapy. She co-authored The Digital Therapeutics Revolution: Everything About … -
Momose Hiroyuki
He graduated from the Department of Painting at Tokyo Zokei University and earned her graduate degree in Comprehensive Design at the University of Tsukuba. he served as an assistant professor in the Department of Performing Arts and Film at Paichai University and is currently a full-time lecturer in the College of Design at Sangmyung University. A member of ANBD(Asia Network Beyond Design), he has held numerous exhibitions, including From in the Memory , and has given various lectures on topics … -
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 … -
Fujimori Terunobu
Fujimori Terunobu is a Japanese architect and architectural historian. He studied at Tōhoku University before entering graduate school at the University of Tokyo. Whilst writing his thesis in the 1970s Fujimori formed the Architecture Detectives. In this group he and his colleagues searched the city to find and photograph early Western-style buildings. During the 1970s and 1980s he made studies of the city about early Western buildings and unusual occurrences, and did not turn to architecture …