Kamekura’s work for Hiroshima Appeals (1983) series of posters was a shocking and contemplative piece on the horrors of WWII. The poster series was created to symbolize an era of peace following the war. His personal take on the symbolism of the burning butterflies was a profound statement on “The beauty and grace of the…
In the mid-1970’s Ed Fella was asked to make an ad for Sweets catalogue promotion. Sweets catalog was a modern catalog design that included artist covers and accessible information. The seventies were a time of funky colors and radical designs, so Ed Fellas designs blinded right in with the culture. His art did blend in,…
This piece was done with tempera paint and black ink, titled “Bandwerk Open,” and was created later in Walter Dexel’s artistic career. The piece lived in the Kestner-Gesellschaft Hanover exhibition in 1974 to display some of Walter Dexel’s work, until bought for $33,825 by an unidentified buyer. This piece highlights Dexter’s ability to illustrate simple…
This piece was done with tempera paint and black ink, titled “Bandwerk Open,” and was created later in Walter Dexel’s artistic career. The piece lived in the Kestner-Gesellschaft Hanover exhibition in 1974 to display some of Walter Dexel’s work, until bought for $33,825 by an unidentified buyer. This piece highlights Dexter’s ability to illustrate simple…
This oil on canvas painting by Walter Dexel, titled “Sailing Ship,” was ideated early in Dexel’s career when he was under the influence of the Constructivism movement. The piece was sold for nearly $40,000 to some unknown buyer years after being produced. Originally created just for pleasure by Dexter, this painting lived in many different…
Louise Fili took up her biggest, smallest trim size of anything she had ever designed in 2012. Jessica Helfand, a design consultant at the Postmaster General’s Citizen’s Stamp Advisory Committee invited Fili to design a new edition to the “Love” stamp series for the US Postal Service. This series of stamps started with a stamp…
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…
Project 1: Dearest Art Collector “Dearest Art Collector” is one of the Guerrilla Girls earliest pieces, created in 1986. Many copies exist in museums today – the medium used to create the copy of the poster I viewed was screen print on paper owned by the Tate art collection. The composition was…
Bruno Munari devoted his life to transforming art. He thrived in keeping art refreshing. Not only did he write children’s book but he also found letter forms to be toys and tools, signs and objects. His piece called, ABC Dada is one of six major letter projects created during Munari’s six-decade career as an…
This project is a poster designed for Factory Records (THE FACTORY). It features a icon of a man plugging his ears with the words, “use hearing protection”. Factory Records was one of the most influential and iconic collection of work Peter Saville was apart of. When you think of Peter Saville you think of his…
This project is cover art for the album Unknown Pleasure by Joy Division. This piece of art is one of Peter Saville’s most recognizable and popular designs. It is a depiction of a wave image from the Cambridge Encyclopedia of Astronomy. The image was originally created by radio astronomer Harold Craft at the Arecibo Observatory…
In 1995 April Greiman was approached with a proposition to design a U.S. postal stamp to commemorate the 75th anniversary of the 19th Amendment. The stamp garnered some minor controversy as previously the post office hasn’t put out stamps to celebrate 75th anniversaries, and on top of that the design of the stamp seemed to…