GRAPHIC DESIGN 6
January 1962
A Quarterly Review for Graphic Design and Art Direction
Masaru Katsumi [Editor], Hiromu Hara [Art Director]
Masaru Katsumi [Editor], Hiromu Hara [Art Director]: GRAPHIC DESIGN 6 [A Quarterly Review for Graphic Design and Art Direction]. Tokyo: Diamond Publishing Co., Ltd., January 1962. Original edition. Text in Japanese with English supplement laid in. Quarto. Perfect bound wrappers. 86 pp. Illustrated articles and period advertisements. Multiple paper stocks and elaborate graphic design throughout. Cover by Kohei Sugiura. White wrappers rubbed and lightly soiled, but a very good copy.
10.25 x 11.75 Japanese magazine with 86 pages of elaborate graphic design and finishing effects, including a malleable film overlay by Mitsuo Katsui & Kiyoshi Awazu for creating “Space Pattern.” One hundred issues of “Graphic Design, A Quarterly Review for Graphic Design and Art Direction” were published in Tokyo (on a semi-quarterly basis) between 1959 and 1986. International in scope, the magazine included an English-language supplement that made production of this listing a lot easier.
Contents:
- Sumi Paintings by Toko Shinoda: Kenzo Tange
- New Wave in Graphic Design: 5 Young Designers of the World: Masaru Katsumi
- Selected Works of Kohei Sugiura
- Selected Works of Kiyoshi Awazu
- Selected Works of Theo Dimson
- Selected Works of Pieter Brattinga
- Selected Works of Mitsuo Katsui
- Graphic Design Laboratory 6/ Space Pattern: Mitsuo Katsui & Kiyoshi Awazu
- El Lissitzky: A Pioneer of Modern Design: Katsumi Masaki. Masaru Katsumi organized the exhibition Gropius and the Bauhaus at the National Museum of Modern Art in Tokyo in 1954. In 1959, he published Good Design and launched the magazine Graphic Design in order to make European masters and their teachings known. That year he also declared his preference for constructivists and professional graphics rather than commercial art. This well illustrated prfile of the Russian Lissitzky was an extension of the editorial interest in the intersection of fine and applied arts.
- Photo-Design of the Light Publicity Studio: Takeji Imaizumi. Includes work by Gan Hosoya, Kazunobu Shimura, Makoto Wada, Jo Murakoshi, Nobuo Fushima, Yoshiaki Tominaga, Yoshitaro Isaka, Yuzo Yamashita, Akio Kanda, and others.
- Module Exhibition Panel Designs: Yoshihisa Miyauchi
- Sheet Music Covers Designed by Yumeji Takehisa (1884 – 1934): Hiromu Hara
Editor Masaru Katsumi (1909 – 1983) was a Japanese graphic critic and journalist mainly known for having directed the graphic design of pictograms for the 1964 Tokyo Summer Olympics. The first Olympic Games held in an Asian country represented a major challenge, so in May 1959 Masaru Katsumi headed a Design team of Hiromu Hara , Yūsaku Kamekura, Takashi Kōno and Ikko Tanaka. Because Japanese was very unfamiliar to foreign visitors both by its language and its writing and since 90 countries were represented, it was unthinkable to give directions in 90 languages. Katsumi saw in the pictograms the successors of the ‘mon’ which he considered as the most perfect visual language in the world and therefore his team aims for a visual system in line with the isotype that is easy to understand. The pictograms thus created are a complete success and become a standard for subsequent international events around the world. Building on his success, Masaru Katsumi subsequently directed the design of the pictograms for the 1970 Universal Exhibition and the 1972 Olympic Winter Games.
Art Director Hiromu Hara (1903 – 1986) was an important graphic designer who worked before and after the Second World War. Hara studied the modern typographic theory of El Lissitzky, Moholy-Nagy, and Tschichold and introduced them to Japanese graphic design. He established himself with the theory of “Typofoto” and privately printed his book Shin Kappanjutsu Kenkyu (Study on the New Typography) in 1931, including his text and four Japanese translations from two texts by Moholy-Nagy, one by Baumeister, and one by Tschichold.
The history of Modern Graphic Design in Japan can be traced to the World Design Conference (WoDeCo) convened from May 11th to May 16th, 1960 in Tokyo and supported by the Japanese Government. The conference theme “Total Image for the 20th Century” attracted Designers from around the world to meet their native counterparts in Tokyo. Modelled after the Aspen Design Conference, WoDeCo invited 80 speakers and 300 guests from 26 countries to participate in an international dialogue about the past, present and future of their industries.
These industries included architecture, industrial, environmental, and education, with architectural theories by Kenzo Tenge, Paul Rudolph and Louis Kahn. Graphic Designers included Herbert Bayer (Designer’s Position in Society), Yusaku Kamekura (Katachi), Josef Müller-Brockmann (Education of a Graphic Designer), Saul Bass (Designer’s Responsibility for Visual Culture), Walter Landor (International Style), Tomas Maldonado (Visual Communication), Max Huber (Contemporary Graphic Design and Society) and Otl Aicher (Graphic Design in Advertising).