A bit off the beaten path of design printed on paper comes the collaboration between Ikko Tanaka and Issey Miyake, entitled “East Meets West”. This project is one of the most important to highlight because it is one of the few projects that continues to be produced after Tanaka’s death in 2002. Issey Miyake is…
When talking about Ikko Tanaka’s work, it would be impossible to not recognize the significant portion of his design that was composed of and dedicated to typography. In an article written in 2016, the editor of the Association Typographique Internationale sought to give context to Tanaka’s type work, writing that, “Applying the Western definition, typography…
Tanaka’s first Noh-inspired poster was commissioned for Noh Play, The 8th Sankei Kanze Noh, 1961. It was created as a screen print at 40 11/16 x 28 3/4in. An original print currently resides in the collection of Cooper Hewitt. This poster is one of the few posters in this entire series that doesn’t feature a…
For my submission for the “Who’s Who in Graphic Design” project, I’ve chosen to write about artist, graphic designer and typographer Ikko Tanaka. Since beginning my journey into design at age 15, I’ve always been fascinated with work that has a strong Japanese influence or point-of-view. From my perspective, there is often a deeply-imbedded sense…
For this month’s “Wild Design” submission, I wanted to discuss a piece of design that literally stopped me in my tracks the other day. I know – it’s a cardboard box. Rather, a broken down or flattened cardboard box. And it stopped me in my tracks because it was right in front of me on…
For our assignment on “Judging a Book By Its Cover”, I chose Karel Marten’s “counterprint”, a collection of Martens’ independent and non-commissioned graphic design work. The book intially jumped out to me for its simplicity, its lack of adornment, and the seemingly transparent nature of the cover (seen above). At first glance, it’s hard to…