ROMEO AND JULIET
Shigeo Fukuda [Designer]
Shigeo Fukuda [Designer]: ROMEO AND JULIET. Tokyo: Shigeo Fukuda, 1965. First edition. Text in English.Slim quarto. Printed and saddle stitched French folded self wrappers. 16 pp. Graphic interpretation of the doomed intersection of Shakespeare’s Montague and Capulet lovers. Wrappers lightly marked and soiled with a tiny nick near the upper staple. Interior clean and fine, so a very good or better copy of this rarity.
7.125 x 7.125 booklet with a 16-page graphic, color coded interpretation of the doomed love affair of Romeo and Juliet.
“I believe that in design, 30% dignity, 20% beauty and 50% absurdity are necessary. Rather than catering to the design sensitivity of the general public, there is advancement in design if people are left to feel satisfied with their own superiority, by entrapping them with visual illusion.” – Shigeo Fukuda
Shigeo Fukuda passed away on January 11, 2009. Here are excerpts from the Steven Heller obituary (January 19, 2009) in the New York Times: "Mr. Fukuda was expert at communicating messages using minimal graphic means. Although he admired Japanese woodblock traditions, his spare style was universal, his symbolism bridging cultural divides. ... Although he had some commercial clients, most of his work was for social and cultural concerns, like the 1970 World’s Fair in Osaka, for which he designed the official poster.
"Graphic wit was part of Mr. Fukuda’s upbringing. Born in 1932 in Tokyo to a family of toy manufacturers, he enjoyed making origami as child. Yet as a young man in the late 1940s and ’50s he developed a keen interest in minimalist Western graphic design known as the Swiss Style. He graduated from the Tokyo National University of Fine Arts and Music in 1956.
"Mr. Fukuda was the first Japanese designer inducted into the New York Art Directors Club Hall of Fame. He was also the subject of a major show at the I.B.M. Gallery in New York in 1967 organized by Paul Rand, designer of the I.B.M. logo. The Asian Art Museum of San Francisco mounted an exhibition in 1987, and in 1999, the Japan Foundation in Toronto presented the show "Visual Prankster: Shigeo Fukuda."