It has been a year since Akiyama Shin quietly took down his shop in Shinjuku, closing the revered schtücco design studio, entrusting his former staff with the care of a number of important clients, and returning northward to the humble fold of country life in his home prefecture of Niigata with his wife/collaborator Ayako and newborn son. Tokyo lost an important and vital member of our design community at that moment — prolific and craft-centric in his output, thoughtful in his philosophy and approach. This quiet, humble man’s exit stage-left is something worth noting.1

His departure was followed by a flurry of activity: most notably, a post-mortem, live-in retrospective at Pantaloon an Osaka-based gallery and design studio, which saw schtücco’s oeuvre filling the walls of the entire space alongside misprints, proof sheets, book dummies and a rearrangement of the materials within the space. A tent and catalogued inventory of everything the young family would be using during their month-long stay within the gallery — vegetables, clothing, cloth diapers and technology were all ordered, stacked and itemized — reflecting the Akiyama family’s subsumption into a now totalizing collapse of work, life and art.

A series of lectures and events accompanied the exhibition, individuals from Tokyo and Osaka invited to Pantaloon to engage with Akiyama in dialogue for the public, exploring the roles of design in relation to art, literature, music, and the everyday. Curators, artists, editors, and designers were all invited to speak candidly about work and what design holds for us all at this particular moment. All were invited into a sort of temporary community with Akiyama and his family as its pillar in a rare moment of personal reflection that is usually rare in the hustle-bustle of Japanese business.2

The exhibition and associated events gave nuanced form to so much of Akiyama’s way of working — one that is engaged politically, aesthetically and socially. Everyday graphic design in Tokyo is prominently service-oriented3 and to have this act of servicing brought into a gallery, and then, most importantly, destabilized by emphasizing the more personal, authored, community-centric aspects of a critical and speculative graphic design practice in a setting that had simultaneously been deconstructed and reconstructed according to the designer’s personal vision, exposed the public to alternate ways of working that had potentially not been experienced in Japan before.4

Akiyama’s formal education in architecture is belied by his personal works. Created under the nom de guerre Buku Akiyama, they are a quiet structural assessment of the everyday combined with the bookmaker’s lexical desire for order and cataloging. This on-again/off-again art practice is best documented in his 2009 book, Composition No.2 “an exceptional state”: with equipments owned by hiromiyoshii. Within, Akiyama’s reorganization of FARM, an exhibition space in the Kiyosumi area of Tokyo, was photographed by Masahito Yamamoto, documenting Akiyama’s event in which he took the contents of the studio and rearranged all into structures, three-dimensional compositions, and system-like collections. The book, designed by schtücco and published by Akiyama’s own publishing house edition nord, appears to be damaged, the spine of each in the edition of 600 intentionally torn off, exposing Akiyama’s fascination with raw material and process.

edition nord is both a conceptual celebration and exploration of the most instinctive and primary elements of art-making, combining the immediacy of the found, rapid mark-making and narrative — spinning and folding these attributes into physical forms that are a taught tension of crafted precision and the raw materiality of chance processes. The typography within is highly considered and abundant in its exploration of different methods of reproduction. Papers, printing, and the visual edit that holds each together is rugged and assured — a poised conflation that reveals the authored instinct. As a collection, Akiyama’s work feels like the output of an individual involved to the deepest levels with his craft, rendered in often stark palettes alongside considered typographic scales akin to musical compositions. In all, there is a palpable sense of the book as an expanse that engages the reader physically, mentally, and emotionally — it is not treated as mere printed physical ephemera.

Past edition nord titles have included compendiums of work for artists such as Masanao Hirayama/HIMAA, Tadashi Kawamata, Eiki Mori, and Komichi Kobayashi. The imprint’s inaugural release, an edition of eight hundred bound boxes of photographs exactly reproduced from source material provided by artist Christian Holstad for a 2007 exhibition titled “Blood Bath & Beyond.” The printed cards within question the authorship of the photograph and the concept of assumed identity depicted in the reproductions — a collation of imagery of masked and costumed individuals. The box was the result of two years of labor, mimicking the physical qualities of the original photographs, working with printers to adjust the sheen and surface of each printed replica of the found photographs to perfection, including original inscriptions and backing material on all thirty-eight pieces within the collection. Beyond authorship, these near-exact duplicates bring into question the nature of the copy versus the original in a profoundly Habermasian way; the originals are merely found whereas the reproductions are collated (and thus categorized), given additional focus through the lens of ‘art’5 and monetized. Perhaps it is no accident that the vehicle for delivering these media is a box, as the edition opens contemporary art practices and art publishing strategies up to a bevy of compelling questions.

Shin’s new stüccke line of books for edition nord explore drawing as a medium and focus, most notably Kawai Misaki’s Pencil Exercise — a mammoth compendium of quick, mirth-filled line drawings. This 500-page expanse of quirky mark-making that evince Kawai’s place as the heir to the throne of art-making dominated by so many skateboarders (most notably Mark Gonzales) creating loose, off-the-cuff works that celebrate life, absurdity, and the world around us with more than a pinch of atavistic tendencies. These books are held together using the most spare, yet strongest material. The covers are minimal or essentially dematerialized, taking the form of postcards or smaller sheets of paper. Added to this Is a sense of customization. Kawaii’s book features eight different “cover” designs, a minimal foreground to the mono-color drawings that comprise the edition.

It is natural that Akiyama has turned to self-publishing. the establishment of the edition nord imprint followed fifteen years of designing books and printed promotional materials for some of Tokyo’s most successful galleries, notably hiromiyoshi. Akiyama has designed books for artists such as photographer Araki Nobuyoshi, sculptor/painter Keegan McHargue6, architect Ando Tadao, as well as innumerable others. It is also curious as to what Akiyama’s trajectory from here will be, as a publisher and as a graphic designer. I, for one, am curious- his arc in graphic design and self-initiated curatorial projects is a potential blueprint for how graphic design might be practiced in a distinct way in Japan that veers from the mere labor-based model so prevalent today. It is ‘merely’ a matter of public awareness, acknowledgement and encouragement — phenomena that often occur slowly in a nation slow to change. If picked up and ran with, it’d infinitely enrich design culture in Japan.

1 Despite Akiyama’s pastoral retreat from Tokyo, he is still very much an active force in the city, representing edition nord at the Tokyo Art Book Fair, appearing alongside Kawai at the opening for the Pencil Exercise exhibition and book release.

2 I note this from personal experience, I engaged in the series, giving a lecture and a short question-and-answer session with Akiyama. I am grateful to him for his politeness at me hogging the mic like an American jerk.

3 As noted in my recent lecture series in the United States, the life of the graphic designer residing in Tokyo is often stark — graphic designers tend to work far-longer hours than their American and European counterparts and earn approximately 60% of what their Western counterparts do. There are exceptions, but they are few and far-between.

A personal, anonymized case study:
Naoko is a friend and graphic designer working for a small architecture publishing house. She begins work at 10am and finishes work at 4am. She has not had a day off this month — crafting books, printed promotional material, creating booth designs for book fairs and generally helping out around the office. She is paid approximately ¥2.8 million a year — a near-unlivable wage.

4 This being said, Yokoo Tadanori has continually created situations of a similar nature in the 1960s and 1970s that upheld his stature as a designer, artist, hedonist, and creative individual. But these events tended to be in the service of a cult of personality surrounding Yokoo, as opposed to extending the sphere of public/private and engaging communities as done by Akiyama. Akiyama utilized his relative fame to set public dialogue and critique in motion, whereas Yokoo utilized his actual fame (also relative, but stratospheric compared to Akiyama’s renown merely amongst designers) to propel himself into engaging in self-serving creative projects spanning television (titles for the television show むー), getting his photo taken with John Lennon and Yoko Ono (synergy by association), and acting (in a mediocre fashion in the film 僕は天使じゃないよ/Boku Wa Tenshi Ja Nai Yo).

5 And the gallery system which commodifies art.

6 It was McHargue who introduced me to Akiyama in 2007, during the run of his successful solo show “Mauve Deep”C at hiromiyoshi. McHargue, artist Tauba Auerbach, the Akiyamas and I wended our way through a succession of obscure record stores in Shinjuku, watching as McHargue dutifully dug out new additions to his expansive record collection. No mere name drop, McHargue recognized the intensity in which both Akiyama and myself have articulated our positions within the realm of design. I am merely grateful for the introduction.

A The name and subject matter of the designer’s publishing house has been changed — to open up standard business practices in Japan through the concrete example of an individual is to ruin a person’s career.

B That Yokoo’s varied methodologies and career turns have never been exposed to serious criticism in the design or popular press is case for worry, hence these barbed stings that occasionally appear in my essays.

C I would also like to note that this exhibition title is pretty much the most awesome title for an exhibition ever.

Murakami Haruki’s most recent novel 1Q84 was released in English translation this past October — his most widely anticipated work and arguably the most anticipated Japanese translation ever.

Before its initial May 2009 release, Murakami kept the content of the two-volume novel a close secret. That sense of mystery fueled sales in Japan: The novel quickly sold out and went through several printings. Murakami added Book Three in April 2010 to finish the tale of writer/math teacher Tengo and physical trainer/assassin Aomame, two thirty-year-olds who are transported to an alternate universe and battle bizarre forces that control the universe. Book Three sold a million copies in just two weeks.

News of the Japanese version stoked the interest of the author’s international fan base. Now that Alfred Birnbaum, Jay Rubin, and Phillip Gabriel (in addition to his many other translators around the world) have caught up with Murakami, fanboys and girls have to get their news from abroad via those who can read Japanese, or other languages which are more quickly translated. The Japan Times ran a review of Books One and Two (and later Three) as did The Complete Review cataloged the international critical response as the European translations followed the Chinese and Korean. Orthofer even wrote a review of the first two books based on the German translation.

In October, some American bookstores held midnight release parties, and one New York San Francisco bookstore even bought tacos and beer for customers who had pre-ordered the novel. The critical response to the 900+ page mammoth arrived quickly thanks to review copies that had been issued months earlier. 1Q84 has been included on all of the year-end best of lists by default (Amazon, New York Times, Barnes and Noble, The Economist), and many have lumped it together with Stephen King’s 11/22/63 and George R. Martin’s A Dance With Dragons, celebrating the return of the epic five-pound novel.

Critics overall, however, have been far more divided than the initial fervor surrounding the release would suggest.

Some have attempted to locate Murakami’s Japanese-ness as John Updike did in The New Yorker in 2005 for Kafka on the Shore, praising Murakami for his “Japanese spiritual tact.” Sam Sacks of the Wall Street Journal gives a balanced review that is mostly negative, but his final comment claims that the book “floats in a globalized ether”: It’s weak because it is “wrapped in a cocoon — or an air chrysalis — of cultural amnesia” and doesn’t take advantage of the country’s literary history. Emily Parker of The Daily Beast defends the novel with the puzzling suggestion that readers should “stop looking for hidden meanings.” Instead “Be one with the Japanese. Japanese cultural phenomena don’t always translate so well overseas.”

Michael Dirda of the Washington Postand Kathryn Schulz of the New York Times both claim that the book kept them reading (and thinking about it after they finished), but Dirda is far more willing to overlook its weaknesses. Schulz is one of the few critics to question Murakami’s use of rape, calling the novel “psychologically unconvincing and morally unsavory.” She isn’t ready to dismiss it completely, though. She still enjoyed reading it.

Another review in the New York Times, this one by Janet Maslin, was far more negative than Schulz’s and summed up the critical response: “…1Q84 has even [Murakami’s] most ardent fans doing back flips as they try to justify this book’s glaring troubles.” Nathan Heller of Slate is one of these fans, apparently. In the beginning of his review he acknowledges that “a novelist who can draw in, and retain, so large and avid an international audience must be doing something right.” And then the backflips begin. He decides that that “something” is this: 1Q84 succeeds by re-creating a childhood experience of storytelling.” He dismissed the banalities, the childish plot points, and fantastical nature as intentionally childish.

Heller is a more forgiving reader than Christian Williams of The Onion A.V. Club who refuses to play the game and bashes the novel, labeling it “stylistically clumsy” and filled with “tone-deaf dialogue, turgid description, and unyielding plot.” Perhaps the most succinct summary of the novel came on Amazon from a user named “bookcynic” who stated “many curiosities were left unexplained.”

While this is true for many of Murakami’s novels, nowhere before has he been gone on for so many pages with so little resolution. Nor with so much awkward sex: The novel was nominated for a Bad Sex in Fiction Award, an annual contest sponsored by Literary Review. 1Q84 was nominated along side King’s novel as well as Dead Europe by Christos Tsiolkas; David Guterson ended up winning for his rewriting of the Oedipus Rex myth, Ed King.

For more perspective, let us turn to Jay Rubin’s take on Kafka on the Shore in his book Haruki Murakami and the Music of Words — perhaps the most fitting description of Murakami’s fiction post-1987:

One’s reception…depends heavily on the degree of one’s willingness to ‘go with the flow’ of the story. To a reader less willing, Murakami seems to be relying far too heavily on contrivance and coincidence, and he too easily overlooks inconsistencies on the realistic pane.

Critics willing to read past what Schulz called the “surface gaffes” are more likely to enjoy the book. This, more than anything else, explains the range of responses to the book.

Other than Christopher Tayler of the London Review of Books, critics have also failed to mention that 1Q84 is Murakami’s least funny novel. Tayler astutely notes that the third-person narration “dampens the wisecracks, deprives the central characters of Boku’s buttonholing powers and generally takes the edge off Murakami’s storytelling.” One of the most enjoyable (if not the most enjoyable) parts about reading Murakami, especially his early works, is hearing his boku narrator’s commentary on the world around him. Take, for example, the narrator’s encounter with hotel reception when he asks about the development of the new Dolphin Hotel in Dance Dance Dance:

Thirty seconds later, [the receptionist] returned with a fortyish man in a black suit. A real live hotelier by the looks of him. I’d met enough of them in my line of work. They are a dubious species, with twenty-five different smiles on call for every variety of circumstance. From the cool and cordial twinge of disinterest to the measured grin of satisfaction. They wield the entire arsenal by number, like golf clubs for particular shots.

This is the Murakami I know and love. His narration had a healthy disrespect for authority but didn’t make much of it. At the heart of the narrator is sentimentality.

To an extent, Murakami wrote through his own disillusion of the dissolution of the student movement of the late-’60s. While Murakami worked late hours running a jazz bar after he graduated from Waseda University, his former classmates sold out for the Japanese economy, helping run the big businesses that fueled Japan’s boom. Norwegian Wood then is the end of the line — until then his narrators had been capable of drinking off the bad times or forgetting them, but in Norwegian Wood we learn that there is no amnesia, that in fact the narrators have been haunted by memories of lost love and dead friends. While this is a notable shift in tone, Watanabe, the narrator of the book, still has a healthy, sardonic view of the world.

The tone of 1Q84, however, is drastically different than anything Murakami’s ever written. Written completely in third person, the lack of first person narrator makes it difficult to tell when Murakami is trying to be funny and when he is trying to be earnest. Aomame’s lesbian encounter, for example, seems overly earnest:

As her mind traced these graphic memories, the brass unison of Leoš Janáček’s Sinfonietta rang like festive background music. The palm of her hand was caressing the curve of Tamaki’s waist. At first Tamaki just laughed as if she were being tickled, but soon the laughter stopped, and her breathing changed. The music had initially been composed as a fanfare for an athletic meet. The breeze blew gently over the green meadows of Bohemia in time with the music. Aomame knew when Tamaki’s nipples suddenly became erect. And then her own did the same. And then the timpani conjured up a complex musical pattern.

Yet the strange juxtaposition of bold brass instruments and erect nipples also begs to be read as comedy (unintentional though it may be). Murakami’s biggest failure with 1Q84 may be that he’s trying too hard.

While researching the history of Onitsuka Tiger’s branding and graphic design, I came across an odd, yet highly appealing piece of custom lettering on the company’s ONICK ski boots from the 1970s. Reminiscent of aspects of the typeface Black-Out by Eli Carrico (released by my type foundry Wordshape), yet vertically compressed with razor-sliced counters and odd stencil element that makes up one of the legs of the “K,” the ONICK lettering is a potential source for an intriguing modular font.

Original ONICK lettering

I immediately thought of Tsunekawa Ryoichi as a potential collaborator to bring this piece of lettering to full-fledged life in the contemporary context. Based in Nagoya, Tsunekawa runs an independent type foundry called Dharma Type, including three specialized foundry sub-labels: Flat-It, devoted to display lettering; Prop-A-Ganda, a series of fonts inspired by and based on retro propaganda posters, movie posters, retail sign lettering and advertisements in the early 20th century; and Holiday Type, a series of decorative and retro scripts for holiday use.

Tsunekawa’s work has seen a flurry of notice overseas this past year, having been featured in both MyFonts’ “Creative Characters” and YouWorkForThem’s newsletter. As the work of most Japanese type designers is almost wholly unnoticed abroad, the fact that Tsunekawa was interviewed by two of the most popular type distribution companies in the world is something beyond the norm. Perhaps it is because he works independently, or perhaps it is due to the charm and friendliness with which his typefaces are infused. Either way, this attention is both welcome and appreciated.

ONICK ski boot

Beyond mere charm, Tsunekawa’s work is nuanced, detailed, and accessible due to its high level of finish. His fonts stand apart from his contemporaries in Latin typeface design in Japan due to his fascination with pop, vernacular, and historical lettering from “non-pure” sources, whereas type designers like Okano Kunihiko and Kobayashi Akira have spent years analyzing the essence of Western letterform construction and unlocking the essence of Latin forms, Tsunekawa views surface and the awkward nature of his sources as being of value, as well.

His irreverence for the formal doctrines of history imbue his typeface designs with a rugged inventiveness that would be missed by most — glyphs without source designs are guessed at and approximated, often in a manner wildly divergent from what Western eyes would assume. It is in these moments that I find sheer delight in Tsunekawa’s work and that make me most pleased to invite him aboard Néojaponisme and Onitsuka Tiger’s type development project.

Rough sketch for ONICK

His assorted typefaces show an eclecticism in finish and as holistic systems. Tsunekawa’s return email to me about the proposed type project showed a digital sketch of how a completed typeface family from the source lettering might look, rendered with an effortlessness and dedication to detail that belies a skilled craftsperson. Further development showed Tsunekawa’s rigor. The typeface in development rapidly featured glyphs ignored by many: a full set of fractions, Eastern European diacritics and accents, superior and inferior numerals, alternate characters, and custom ligatures — all designed with regulated, detailed spacing.

ONICK type specimen

ONICK is a typeface Tsunekawa should be proud of — an homage to a moment in history rendered in the absolute best fashion. We are proud to present it to the world as a series of type kits including desktop and web fonts bundled with @font-face CSS kits for immediate use.

Download ONICK here.

Following the one-two-three punch of the Tohoku earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear crisis in Fukushima, much ink and many pixels have been spilled over foreign media outlets’ treatment of the disasters. In particular, many foreign residents (including myself and other members of this web journal) have accused the overseas mass media of panicking locals who rely on English-language news (and their parents) by overplaying the nuclear situation in comparison to more measured domestic coverage. Those playing devils’ advocate, such as Uesugi Takashi, claim the foreign media brought a balanced viewpoint to a dangerous situation the Japanese government is doing its best to downplay.

Whichever side you take, there’s one piece missing from the puzzle: How do Japanese feel about the coverage of their country from abroad? And more to the point, how do domestic journalists feel about their foreign counterparts? Largely because everyone has had their hands full dealing with the unfolding crises, there’s been precious little commentary from the Japanese about the portrayal of their nation’s predicament abroad. Until now.

“The most notable aspect of the incident was the sheer number of journalists who ‘deserted in the face of the enemy,’” declare Yokota Takashi and Yamada Toshihiro, who reported on the crisis in Tohoku as correspondents for the Japanese language edition of Newsweek. Their article, entitled “And Then the Journalists Ran Away,” is a scathing critique of the behavior of the Western mass media in the early days of the Fukushima disaster.

Until now, Japan regarded the foreign media with an unadulterated measure of respect. We honored their journalistic standards as we relied to a degree upon their authority. [...] But this fairy-tale crumbled during the Tohoku Earthquake and Tsunami. Entangled in the very news they were supposed to report, [the Western media] lost all sense of composure.

Yokota and Yamada paint a portrait of journalists who were as terrified of the dangers of radiation as the readers and viewers to whom they were supposed to be delivering the news.

Take, for example, the case of a journalist from America’s one of the world’s most well-known financial newspapers, who was covering the U.S. military support efforts alongside correspondents of this magazine. [...] In normal times, this Tokyo-based correspondent conducted himself with the utmost of composure. On the first day of our coverage of the U.S. military, he coolly filed stories from the front lines on his smart phone.

But when dawn broke the next day, he was a changed man. This was right as the situation at Fukushima Daiichi began to worsen. Hastily packing his bags, he began to rush away from the command center. When a U.S. military spokesman tried to persuade him that we were in no immediate danger, the preoccupied journalist cut him off with an “I just want to get out of here!” before disappearing into the city of Sendai.

Yokota and Yamada, however, reserve their harshest criticism for television reporters.

Hands down, the American television stations were the most hysterical presence. Playing up the drama of world news is their bread and butter, but it reached new heights in Tohoku [...] At first, the point was to showcase their reporters doing on-site coverage. But this quickly devolved into a circus.

The pair go on to describe a breathless report by CNN anchor Anderson Cooper, which (by very nature of being in English) undoubtedly wasn’t seen by many locals. It took place just after Cooper learned about the second hydrogen explosion at the Fukushima Daiichi complex.

In a live back-and-forth [from Japan] with a nuclear expert back in the studio in America, Cooper peppered his fellow reporters with questions like “How far are we from Fukushima?” and “Which way is the wind blowing?” Upon hearing that he was more than 100 kilometers distant from the Fukushima reactors, he exclaimed “Then shouldn’t we get out of here?” Whether he was doing this in order to build a sense of drama, or out of sincere apprehension, we don’t know. But what is clear is that he made no attempt to calmly ascertain the facts of the situation, and in so doing needlessly fanned the fears of the audience.

Even the most well meaning attempts to frame the situation often came off as clueless, according to Yokota and Yamada.

Some [foreign journalists] lost their intellects along with their cool. [...] Even going so far as to delve into stereotyping. [...] When the 800 original nuclear workers were reduced to 50, the Western media quickly dubbed them “The Fukushima 50” and praised their valor. But this also proved fertile ground for prejudicial references. England’s Sky News called them “Nuclear Ninja” and “Samurai,” while the famed German paper BILD referred to the JSDF helicopters dropping water on the plants as “kamikaze.” At first glance this sort of reporting might seem harmless, but it isn’t.

The pair reasons that these “racist” stereotypes aren’t just sloppy reporting. They draw attention from the people who are truly suffering: the actual victims of the tsunami.

Effectively the predicament of the victims has been made secondary. Little has been reported about those who are desperately searching for their families, the lack of adequate medical care for the elderly who make up the majority of refugees, or the economic impact of the disasters.

They describe a vicious cycle that affected not only viewers, but governments as well.

When foreign media saw reports like Cooper’s, which overstated the terrors of radiation, many began to wonder if the situation wasn’t actually far worse than the Japanese were leading them to believe. It’s entirely possible that this overplaying of the dangers more than necessary played a key role in the decisions of several embassies to evacuate their citizens.

Yokota and Yamada reserve some words of praise for the media outlets that are treating the situation with the attention they feel it truly deserves.

The New York Times, which has run no shortage of articles that stereotype Japan, has increased the number of reporters covering the country and continues to do good work. And many other foreign journalists actually requested to be sent to Japan to support Tokyo bureaus deflated by the journalistic exodus.

But the pair conclude that even as things improve, the impact of foreign-media-fed hysteria remains.

The fact remains that the use of inflammatory words “Chernobyl-level disaster” continues to paint the entirety of Japan as devastated. The fear of radiation has led cargo ships to avoid ports in Tokyo and Yokohama, and there have even been cases of experts being forbidden from entering stricken areas to conduct surveys of the conditions there. This is hindering recovery. It’s a second disaster caused by the media.

Japan survived the trial of the Tohoku/Kanto Disaster, but we can’t say it’s thanks to the foreign media.

“If someone designs an original typeface … they don’t invent new letters; they invent new shapes for letters that we understand only because they are so similar to the shapes of letters that already exist. It is not so much the particular shapes that are important, but rather the ingenuity of the letterforms in the context of all the other letterforms that existed before, and the meaning or significance they convey in that context.”
– Mr Keedy, 2004

The work of Okano Kunihiko (岡野邦彦) and Ohara Daijiro (大原大次郎) represent wildly different approaches to typography, though each is a master craftsperson at creating original contemporary letterforms inflected by conceptual and formal lettering from the past. Little seen outside of Japan, their work represents a new guard of typographic designers filtering into the Japanese mainstream.

The AXIS font family, much of which is the work of Okano, is the typeface family utilized by Apple, Nintendo, and Mazda to express the brands’ typographic voices in Japan. NTT Docomo, the largest mobile phone carrier in Japan, also utilizes AXIS as the default typeface for their handsets. Despite the contemporary styling of the AXIS Compact family, whose Latin forms follow the formal evolution of humanist sans serif typefaces such as Frutiger and Myriad, Okano is no mere default Modernist. His work exercises multiple perspectives — the chopped terminals of punchcutters, deep ink traps of the 1970s and 1980s, and exaggeratedly differentiated counterspaces enhance readability with one foot in the past and one solidly in the present. Okano’s typefaces move your eyes- some almost somnambulantly in their refinement, while others insinuate a rhumba, moving optics along in steady, surprising succession.

Okano’s logotype work operates in different terrain, often that of contemporary nostalgia — a national obsession with better days (given form via the 1995 movie Always – San-chôme no Yûhi — a gauzy, soft focus look at the post-war obsession with the automobile and the electric conveniences freshly offered to the general public at that time). While in no way overt, many of Okano’s works mine history for aspects of their base forms, then update them with the sharp angularity offered by an incisive sense of the contemporary. Okano is no retro revivalist offering up readymade solutions: his work is that of one who understands history, then synthesizes and sublimates the lessons of the masters into brave new form.

The work of Ohara Daijiro meanwhile represents a near-polar opposite in his reverence for the untrained, though channeled with precision in his use of bubbly cartoon lettering, art nouveau-esque display types, and roughly-rendered geometric characters. The past century collides in his work in a visceral way, bleeding dot gain and the uneven tones of cheap reprographic technology. Reminiscent of vintage candy shops, low-budget U.K. psychedelia, and reverberating with the echoes of the ’60s and ’70s small press in Japan, Ohara’s work retains bits of the innocence of the work in Graphic 55, the island nation’s first full-fledged graphic design exhibition. These assorted strains of influence are mixed with a hand-wrought tactility that is innocent and playful, yet craft-centric in its thoroughness and richness of form and finish.

Ohara’s designs for pop band Sakerock mimic their continuation of the values and sounds of late ’80s indie music in Japan — the past reverberating into today through their work alongside stalwarts like Kicell, Your Song Is Good, Zainichi Funk, and Mu-Stars. There is no denying the strength of musical communities, especially when paired with visual execution in step with melodic vision.

Rhythm is very much the base of good lettering and typography, and this is where Okano and Ohara’s work connects: Each is creating patterns of work that keep time in ways that are reliant upon history while being very much original compositions. Each will be remembered as being part of a continuum — creative ‘fellow travelers’ who have created applied visual form filled with meaning.

* Originally published in the German typography quarterly Slanted #11 along with the first in a twelve-part primer on Japanese typography to be published in book form at some undetermined future date.