A tribute poster celebrating Ikko Tanaka (1930-2002), a revered master of Japanese graphic design.
Poster, 100×70 cm
2019 © Nicola-Matteo Munari
Ph. © Tokyo Bling
Ph. © Nicola-Matteo Munari
Ph. © All rights reservedIn 2014 the Museum für Gestaltung of Zurich promoted the design of a tribute poster celebrating the master of Japanese graphics Ikko Tanaka (1930–2002), the first art director of Muji and author of many extraordinary graphic artworks.
Tanaka, who was able to bring Japanese aesthetic tradition into modern graphics, is mostly known because of his figurative posters made of flat-coloured shapes.
Poster, 100×70 cm
Designed by Ikko Tanaka in 1981.
1981 © Ikko Tanaka
The modular layout made of
12 squares, with the second row
from the top split in two halves.
2014 © Nicola-Matteo Munari
12 squares, with the second row
from the top split in two halves.
2014 © Nicola-Matteo Munari
Although in the public perception Tanaka is mostly associated with colours and figures, geometry is also a constant feature of his work with an essential importance.
The tribute poster, therefore, emphasises this overlooked feature by bringing to light the structure of one of his most beautiful posters—Nihon Buyo (1981).
Originally designed to promote a theatre play organised by the UCLA Asian Performing Arts Institute of Los Angeles, the poster is now part of the collection of New York’s MoMA, Victoria & Albert Museum of London, and the Cooper-Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum.
Ph. © Tokyo Bling
Preliminary sketch of the poster,
revealing its geometric structure.
2014 © Nicola-Matteo Munari
revealing its geometric structure.
2014 © Nicola-Matteo Munari
“The poster suggests the idea of Japanese dance — nihon buyo — in an essential way, which is made of pure graphic poetry.”
By removing all the figures and colours from the original poster, the basic geometric structure that lied behind clearly revealed itself.
The linear grid that emerged is evocative of the modularity which is typical to the Japanese tradition in both horizontal surfaces—like tatami, the straw flooring—and vertical surfaces—such as shoji, the paper doors.
Ph. © Nicola-Matteo MunariEven if transformed, the tribute poster shares the same essence of Tanaka’s original poster and both enhances his sensibility and rigorous design rationality.
Through geometry and typographic composition, the poster essentially suggests the theme of Japanese dance—nihon buyo—that here founds an original interpretation through the poetics of the graphics expression.
—Nicola-Matteo Munari
Promoter
Museum für Gestaltung,
Zurich
Design
Nicola-Matteo Munari
Project Date
2014
Museum für Gestaltung,
Zurich
Design
Nicola-Matteo Munari
Project Date
2014
