My first interaction with Takenobu Igarashi, for this early Graphis article, led to my first book on design (his design) Y.M.D.: Ancient Arts, Contemporary Designs. Igarashi was also kind enough to mentor me through the research needed to clarify the historical context of postwar designers I profiled for Graphis and collected in my book, 12 Japanese Masters, also published by Graphis.

1992, Graphis, Inc. (New York)

Purchase: Graphis #277
See PDF

Since 1971 he has presented his own collections around the world. This makes him a professional fashion designer, but what he has done outside therealm of fashion makes him a designer in a broader sense of the word. Most people call Issey Miyake an artist, and some call him a genius.

1992, Graphis, Inc. (New York)

Purchase: Graphis #280
See PDF

Takaaki Bando admits that his work, although based on the concept of universalism, is "a kind of terrorist graphic design. But if even a small message comes across, then I've succeeded. I want it to be said that this, too, is design."

1994, Graphis, Inc. (New York)

Purchase: Graphis #294
See PDF

Hajime Tachibana is pretty sober for a 1990s media idol. And maybe that's as it should be. In his pristine three-story studio/shelter, he seems serious about everything: typography, computers, the Internet, and the individual's place in the digital onslaught.

1996, Graphis, Inc. (New York)

Purchase: Graphis #305
See PDF

Toshihiko Ando, leading car illustrator, creates pastel, acrylic and auto paint originals selling for thousands at solo exhibitions in trendy Tokyo galleries.

1997, Graphis, Inc. (New York)

Purchase: Graphis #307
See PDF

Hideya Kawakita has built up an image of the shochu brand Iichiko with campaigns focused on landscapes and urban settings that lead the viewer to imagine simpler times, sunnier locales, and the possibility of an unpeopled peace and quiet. This is brand-building via inspirational landscape and nostalgia.

1997, Graphis, Inc. (New York)

Purchase: Graphis #311
See PDF

Yusaku Kamekura founded the first active society of graphic designers and the first agency linking designers and their corporate clients. He introduced Japanese designers to the world. And while there was no official design consortium, there was surely one unofficial leader. This was the only master designer I wasn’t able to meet; I got the assignment just a day or so after he passed away. My interviews were conducted with his grieving associates and friends.

1997, Graphis, Inc. (New York)

Purchase: Graphis #312
See PDF

Although Koichi Sato came of age as a designer just as the airbrush was meeting the California style, and is identified with gradation, stylization, and extraterrestrial motifs elusive. Nor is it facetious, or light, though it is filled with light.

1998, Graphis, Inc. (New York)

Purchase: Graphis #313
See PDF

When I met with him in his huge, hangar-like Tokyo Studio last fall, I asked him how he not only confronted, but accepted all of the fantastic experiences and chances that he had been granted throughout his career, some of which might have stunned a lesser man into inactivity.

1998, Graphis, Inc. (New York)

Purchase: Graphis #315
See PDF

Known for his humorous but sometimes biting visual statements, Shigeo Fukuda goes for the deep laugh, and the reverberating insight.

1998, Graphis, Inc. (New York)

Purchase: Graphis #317
See PDF

One of the founding fathers of Japanese design, Ikko Tanaka spent a lifetime using traditional customs and rituals to produce startling contemporary images. Meeting this master was one of the highlights of my career.

1999, Graphis, Inc. (New York)

Purchase: Graphis #321
See PDF

The time a campaign is given to prove itself has shrunk from a leisurely two years to three months. This unforgiving attention to the bottom line, driven by Japan's worst recession since the end of World War II, is decidedly not what graphic designers have grown up with.

1999, Graphis, Inc. (New York)

Purchase: Graphis #324
See PDF

As head of the Nippon Design Center and one of the world's leading designers, the Japanese graphic master manages to be both the center of a crowd and utterly alone.

2000, Graphis, Inc. (New York)

Purchase: Graphis #325
See PDF

A South Korean graphic designer devoted to expressing the cultural importance of language through typography, Ahn Sang-soo understands who he is and what his responsibility is: to honestly portray South Korea (both Koreas, really) through "the only designed writing system in the world": Hangul.

2000, Graphis, Inc. (New York)

Purchase: Graphis #327
See PDF

Today, everyone marvels over the effects of computer graphics, embraces the high speed of daily life, and revels in decadence. But Liu Kai, born in 1957 and raised in the heart of historical Taipei, wants to show them something better. This piece was a short Creative Showcase in Graphis.

2000, Graphis, Inc. (New York)

Purchase: Graphis #330
See PDF

Breathe in, breathe out. In French, inspiration means inhaling, and Gwenael Nicolas, the head of Curiosity firm themselves are not what inspire him. What makes him draw breath are outrageously successful individuals.

2001, Graphis, Inc. (New York)

Purchase: Graphis #331
See PDF

As leading graphic design professors at Penn State University, Lanny and Kristin Sommese teach their students how to succeed by first divining the fundamentals. For example: Design is not a noun, but a verb. Design is not inspired by other design.

2001, Graphis, Inc. (New York)

Purchase: Graphis #332
See PDF

Japan has nearly every amenity that technology can provide. Yet most people feel curiously empty and robbed of direct experience. How can a designer reach people, and make them feel whole again? With thoughtful, literal and often tactile work, Ken Miki leads them back to earth.

2001, Graphis, Inc. (New York)

Purchase: Graphis #335
See PDF

Mitsuo Katsui is one of the first post-war designers to embrace AV technology and computers as tools of the trade. And yet he is also one of the warmest and most holistically oriented.

2001, Graphis, Inc. (New York)

Purchase: Graphis #336
See PDF

Akio Okumura uses logic to generate the most reasonable solutions to packaging problems, in the process banishing chance and ensuring success. He has designed packaging for more best-selling products than any other single designer in Japan, but not one bears his "mark". "Design is a series of singular solutions", he says.

2002, Graphis, Inc. (New York)

Purchase: Graphis #337
See PDF

Internationally active, yet intimately interested and tied to the traditions of Japan, Kenya Hara is poised to connect the two. This piece was written relatively early in his career, and was to be the beginning of my professional relationship with a towering presence in the Japanese and international design worlds.

2002, Graphis, Inc. (New York)

Purchase: Graphis #340
See PDF

One of the 12 Japanese masters covered in my eponymous Graphis book redefines the furniture business in a land where one must chose between minimalist tradition and cheap plastic products. He succeeds in reintroducing washi, basketry and laquerware in a modern context.

2002, Graphis, Inc. (New York)

Purchase: Graphis #342
See PDF

Package designer and C.E.O. of Japan's Package and Land, Yasuo Tanaka faces the recession, and addresses the polarization it has created in package design, and the extremes of his own creative endeavors.

2003, Graphis, Inc. (New York)

Purchase: Graphis #343
See PDF

A most careful thinker, Taku Satoh began his design career as a child, when he accessorized his bike to the end of the range of possibilities, then stripped it all down again. He continues to apply this exposition of the layers of meaning to all of his projects, whether they be gum wrappers or book designs.

2003, Graphis, Inc. (New York)

Purchase: Graphis #344
See PDF

In the space between real and imaginary, past and present, lies Awazu's art. Through theater, film, writing, and directing, Awazu creates visions in which traditional opposites cease to function as such. From turtles to physiognomic forms superimposed with kanji characters, his symbolism redefines the act of "seeing."

2004, Graphis, Inc. (New York)

Purchase: Graphis #349
See PDF