IDEA SPECIAL ISSUE: SHIGEO FUKUDA
Inscribed to Gene Federico
Minoru Takita [Editor] and Shigeo Fukuda [Designer]
Minoru Takita [Editor] and Shigeo Fukuda [Designer]: IDEA SPECIAL ISSUE: SHIGEO FUKUDA. Tokyo: Seibundo- Shinkosha, November 1991. Original edition. Parallel texts in Japanese and English. 119 pp. A nearly fine perfect-bound magazine in thick, printed wrappers: trace of wear overall. INSCRIBED by Shigeo Fukuda to Gene Federico. Interior unmarked and very clean. Out-of-print. Cover design by Shigeo Fukuda. Frontis portrait of Shigeo Fukuda by Paul Rand.
INSCRIBED by Shigeo Fukuda on page 9: “To Gene Federico / Shigeo Fukuda / 1993 . 1 . 1 . / Tokyo. "
8.75 x 11.5 perfect-bound magazine with 119 pages devoted to the whole career of Shigeo Fukuda and his work in multiple areas and media. Includes a biographical timeline for Fukuda. Both front and back covers designed by Fukuda, the front commissioned for the issue, the back reproducing a superb Fukuda design for a Japanese brand of artist paints.
A retrospective with separate sections for each genre and media form, divided into parts for the two-dimensional works, (330 reproductions with 34 altered portraits) and three-dimensional works (187 reproductions). Rear documentation (to 1991) includes a chronology and an excellent selected exhibition history. Preliminaries include introductory comments and appraisals by Seymour Chwast, Alan Fletcher, Ikko Tanaka, Masuo Ikeda, Syoji Yamafuji, Gérard Paris-Clavel, and Koichi Inakoshi.
Beautifully assembled retrospective with reproductions of 517 Fukuda works in a variety of media, many organized in double-page spreads, most in color, and with 17 b/w Fukuda drawings, fifteen in a rear Fukuda comments section about the creation process in his work, with also two portrait photographs of Fukuda, one at age 2 (b/w), and one from 1991 (color).
"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."
IDEA served as the Japanese equivalent of GRAPHIS -- a magazine dedicating to promoting the Graphic Arts of a certain region to the rest of the world. IDEA offers the contemporary viewer a glimpse into Japanese Graphic Design Culture as it emerged from the ashes of World War II and made its influence felt on a global scale.