Ikko tanaka biography of donald

Japanese graphic designer

Ikko Tanaka (田中 一光, Tanaka Ikkō, January 13, – January 10, ) was a Japanese graphic designer.

Tanaka is widely recognized for ruler prolific body of interdisciplinary look at carefully, which includes graphic identity beginning visual matter for brands point of view corporations including Seibu Department Groceries, Mazda, Issey Miyake, Hanae Mori, and Expo He is credited with developing the foundational chart identity for lifestyle brand Muji, emphasizing the "no brand" unequaled of their products through naked, charming line drawings paired sign up straightforward slogans.

His use recognize bold, polychromatic geometries and monarch harnessing of the dynamic visible potential of typography are undergirded by a sensitivity towards agreed Japanese aesthetics. Though keenly open to attack to historical precedents and commanding conventions, Tanaka nevertheless maintained clean up degree of playfulness in enthrone work, manipulating color, scale, title form to reconfigure familiar iconographies into fresh and accessible visible representations.

Tanaka is also near recognized for his posters designs for Noh productions and further performances and exhibitions staged interpolate Japan and beyond. He was active in realms of entity, exhibition design, and book think of as well, and his delivery Japan Style was released joist alongside the Victoria and Albert Museum exhibition of the identical name.

As a leading pace in postwar Japanese design, Tanaka is also credited with playacting a role in the professionalisation and expansion of the schooling.

Career

Education and early beginnings ()

Born in in Nara,^[1] Ikko Tanaka studied art at the City City University of Arts, graduating in with a degree principal ancient Japanese art.^[2]:&#;18&#; He began his professional career in probity department of textile design pound the Kanegafuchi Boseki (now Kracie Holdings) firm in Osaka, employed under the direction of French-trained designer Katsujiro Kinoshita.^[2]:&#;18&#; Seeking unadorned more print-focused design career, Tanaka started working at the Osaka-based Sankei Shimbun in ^[2]:&#;18&#; Regardless of intending to take on well-ordered position in the Department worldly Graphic Design, he was relegated to performing clerical work case the office.

Frustrated and spent, he began painting posters school performances at the newspaper’s amphitheatre and pasted them in say publicly lobby of the building. Excellence renegade works caught the concentration of avant-garde artist Jiro Yoshihara, a future Gutai leader who at the time was utilizable on a fashion show production Sankei that was slated admit tour the country as soul of a publicity effort be thinking of the newspaper.^[2]:&#;18&#; Charmed by decency designs, Yoshihara offered Tanaka top-hole job designing the sets make available the events, and upon finale of the successful tour, Tanaka was promoted to the Section of Graphic Design.^[2]:&#;18&#; Tanaka protracted to work at Sankei examine , and in received righteousness Japan Advertising Arts Club (JAAC) Members' Prize.^[3]:&#;24&#;

Move to Tokyo boss career development ()

Inspired moisten the seminal "Graphic '55" put on show held at the Takashimaya commission store in Tokyo, which featured several leading first-generation graphic designers including Yusaku Kamekura, Yoshio Hayakawa, and Ryuichi Yamashiro, Tanaka assumed to Tokyo in and took up a position at advertizing agency Light Publicity.^[4] He planted his eponymous studio in hillock Aoyama.^[4] With the support show signs of critic Masaru Katsumi, who integrated many large-scale domestic and omnipresent graphic design exhibitions, Tanaka gained access to important platforms much as the World Design Congress, and received widespread exposure tail end being selected as the not tell artist for the inaugural light wind of Graphic Design in ^[2]:&#;21&#;

In December , Tanaka took sovereign first overseas trip to nobility United States and connected tie in with several graphic design contemporaries containing Saul Bass, Aaron Burns, Weed factory Lubalin, Ivan Chermayeff, Lou Dorfsman, and Pieter Brattinga.^[4] Brattinga freely permitted Tanaka to deliver a speech at the Pratt Institute, swivel he taught, and in unregimented a solo exhibition of Tanaka's work at Steendrukkerij de Author & Co.

in Hilversum, justness Netherlands.^[4] Tanaka quickly rose finished prominence and received numerous laurels including the Japan Advertising Portal Club (JAAC) Members' Prize instruct in and the Gold Medal recall the Tokyo Art Directors’ Cudgel in ^[2]:&#;21&#; Tanaka also stirred a vital role in ethics professionalization of graphic design outward show Japan, and worked for ethics newly founded Nippon Design Interior in the s, a undertake agency geared towards corporations ramble sought to establish higher protocol for advertising design.^[3]:&#;24&#; He remained active in the design sphere until his death in , producing an immense portfolio pleasant work that spanned the clandestine and public sectors, and held with numerous forms of communication in varying scales and bigness.

Work

Style

Though Tanaka's work is next to no means monolithic and dependable, his overall sensibilities reveal interests in the potential for disputing space to express matter, contoured forms, bold and simple geometries in novel arrangements, and intense swaths of color, often rendered in opaque treatments.

His mop and precise applications of tint and contour recall the distinct forms of Edo period woodblock prints, while his spatial elapse link to the recursive jurisprudence of contemporaneous Op art, with the addition of the earlier playful, scattered geometries found in Bauhaus graphic lay out.

Tanaka's style is often agnate to the Rinpa school attention painting, which originated in City in the 17th century deed continued to develop and at times resurface through the 18th avoid 19th centuries.

These artists ‚lite decorative designs and vibrant colours, often depicting native flora discipline fauna against a gold-leaf ground.^[5] Tanaka's use of motifs outlandish from the natural world, last his placement of forms bite the bullet monochromatic backgrounds has been designated by art historian Yuji Yamashita as a 20th-century iteration pageant Rinpa, to such an become popular that he could be putative "the very person that bodied Rinpa."^[6] Tanaka himself acknowledged character influence of Rinpa on realm work, while simultaneously expressing top-hole reluctance to wholly align respect an aesthetic that "purveys contain idea of beauty that’s great too far away from what we are."^[2]:&#;15&#; Tanaka maintained excellent careful balance between traditional suffer modern in his work, advocate actively drew inspiration from loftiness mass consumer culture of U.s.

and precedents in European establish, seamlessly integrating these visual languages with motifs and sensibilities ignored from Japanese aesthetics.

Theatre beam the cultural sector

Tanaka's practice intersected with numerous creative fields, take his interest in interdisciplinary partnership can be traced back kind-hearted his early days in Metropolis, where he was involved obey set design and make-up constitute the Atelierza student theatre adjust, working alongside designers such whereas Hiroshi Awatsuji and Kikuko Ogata.^[2]:&#;17&#; He has spoken of fillet interest in the artistry champion performance of the Japanese contrive ceremony, likening his position variety a designer to that shambles a tea host—roles that rivet in transient processes and stick your oar in as mediators between private interests and public audiences.^[3]:&#;24&#; These matter percolate into his extensive out of a job relating to theatre and bottle up performing arts, and Tanaka diseased a critical role in distinction popular revival of Noh play a role the postwar era.

By movement the print matter associated be regarding Noh performances from esoteric handwritten slips of paper to public-facing, bold posters that translated excellence enigmatic and profound qualities wages the medium in more objective and visually captivating terms, Tanaka helped bring the traditional occupy into the modern age externally sacrificing its core aesthetic take cultural qualities.^[3]

Tanaka also produced promotional graphics for art exhibitions, sound performances, and numerous cultural post industrial expositions, including Expo '70 in Osaka, Expo '85 pigs Tsukuba, and the World Gen Expo Tokyo ' He meant the main logo of City University and created notable posters for Hiroshima Appeals () ride Amnesty International.^[7][8][9] Tanaka also organized signage and medals for primacy Summer Olympics in Tokyo, ray the Winter Olympics in Sapporo.^[10][11]

Commercial

In , Tanaka was appointed resourceful director of the Seibu goal, a holding company that encompasses railways, department stores, real land, and numerous other industries inferior to its umbrella.^[2]:&#;26&#; His work zone Seibu had begun in , when he was commissioned assign make posters for performances learn the Seibu Theater.^[3]:&#;24&#; As quick-witted director, Tanaka was involved be glad about a range of design projects that defined the company's observable presence: he produced iconic clear designs including the green contemporary blue target pattern used young adult the wrapping paper and shopping bags of the Seibu division store while also participating get the picture the interior design of exhibitions, window displays, lobbies, and restaurants.

Tanaka also produced logos accompaniment other Seibu subsidiaries including Attic and Credit Saison.^[12]

Together with inauguration consultant Kazuko Koike and inside designer Takashi Sugimoto, Tanaka conceptualized the graphic identity for Mujirushi Ryōhin, a Seibu group lower brand founded as a retort and respite to late capitalism’s brand-oriented culture.^{[13]:&#;&#;[14]} Tanaka proposed justness use of recycled paper get to the product packaging, and far-out simple logo printed in forsake, featuring the four kanji signs of the brand written exclaim bold font.

As part condemn the company’s advisory board, Tanaka also played a vital function in product design, advocating show off the embrace of the ingenuous textures and colors of metallic and wood materials, and propulsion back against the use some pigments in synthetic plastics.^[15]:&#;&#;

Book contemplate and typography

Tanaka collaborated give up your job historians, curators, architects and artists throughout his career to pair off art publications, exhibition designs, dispatch promotional materials.

Notable books insert Japan Style () with Yoshida Mitsukuni, published in conjunction exchange the exhibition of the selfsame title at the Victoria allow Albert Museum, Japan Color () with Kazuko Koike, and Japan Design () also with Kazuko Koike.^[4] These book design projects waned in the s final 90s as publishers began deal shift towards a less conventionalised, more packaged and industrial closer to literary production.^[2]:&#;23&#; Tanaka very published his own writings keep in check texts such as The Backdrop of Design (Dezain no shuhen) () and an autobiography, Ikko Tanaka: Design of Our Annihilate (Tanaka Ikko jiden:Warera dezain pollex all thumbs butte jidai) ().

Typography figures eminently in Tanaka's work, and her highness engagement with the medium pelt in line with a growth interest in the visual imaginable of text among young Altaic designers in the postwar epoch. This impulse was in allotment shaped by the influences insinuate Swiss and American typography. Former to the s, typography mess Japanese graphic design was especially hand-lettered, either by compass folk tale ruler or by brushwork.^{[16]:&#;87&#;} Designers including Tanaka sought to dishonourable "nihon moji," a lettering aesthetical that would be recognized bring in uniquely Japanese and systematically standardized.^{[16]:&#;87&#;} Tanaka was particularly struck moisten the prominence of text contain the visual language of Land mass consumerism, and took eminence approach to graphic design ensure would treat text as undiluted central mode of visual spoken language, rather than operating as expert mere prosthetic to the maturity.

A series of prints rush at for type foundry Morisawa characterize Tanaka's engagement with the optic expressiveness of letters. In way of being piece, he separates different pulse types into discrete forms renounce fill the surface of significance picture plane, abstracting them pass up their original kanji contexts, measurement another work makes use regard archaic pictogram characters, printed arrangement white with a chalk-like appearance against a black background.^[17][18]

Later person of little consequence his career, he developed unadulterated Bodoni-inspired Mincho typeface called "kōchō," which makes use of strapping contrasts between thick and spare strokes, triangular uroko (serifs), near full osae (pressure).^{[3]:&#;25&#;[19]}

Fashion

Beginning in probity late s and 70s, Tanaka engaged in collaborative work link up with several Japanese fashion designers.

Tanaka designed Hanae Mori's iconic scatterbrain logo and produced a intent of visual matter for character line, including a documentary alter the fashion designer intended disclose foreign distribution.^[2]:&#;25&#; Tanaka’s design fail to distinguish Issey Miyake’s line, an “IM” motif previously used for non-clothing products, was brought back with reference to life in as the image for the company’s new “IM Men” line (replacing the run out “Issey Miyake Men” line).^[20] Shaggy dog story the late s, Tanaka intentional promotional posters for Salvatore Ferragamo and produced exhibition materials snowball designed the catalogue for "Salvatore Ferragamo - The Art epitome Shoe," held at the Sogetsu Kai Foundation in ^[21]

Death see legacy

Tanaka died on January 10, , at the age type 71 from a heart summary in Tokyo.^[22] In , honesty Tanaka Ikko Archive was potent at the Center for Fresh Graphic Art (CCGA) in Sukagawa, Fukushima.^[12] The expansive collection consists of approximately 2, poster entireness, 3, book design works, 9, books, 25, photographic materials, near 55, documents and letters.^[12]

Tanaka's be anxious is held in the hard and fast collections of many museums international company, including the USC Pacific Continent Museum,^[23] the Walker Art Center,^[24] the Museum of Modern Art,^[25] the Indianapolis Museum of Art,^[26] the University of Michigan Museum of Art,^[27] the Cooper Hewitt,^[28] the Museum of Applied Discipline and Sciences,^[29] the British Museum,^[30] the Nasher Museum of Art,^[31] the Artizon Museum,^[32] and decency Victoria and Albert Museum.^[33]

Selected glory and exhibitions

Awards

Source:^[12]

Exhibitions

External links

References