Japan Japanese
From the Publisher. “The quiet beauty of things Japanese. It is the foreign forms, the foreign sounds which are so fascinating. The unmistakable, monotone Sutra recitation of Buddhist monks. The windy, mystical sound of the shakuhachi bamboo flute. The delicate, thin sound of the who mouth organ in the music of Gagaku and Bugaku.
“It is a fine world which exists despite the noise of the time. A world, which does not come forward, but one which invites to enter.
My curiosity having been aroused by Utamaro’s erotic lines and inspired by Emil Ruder, I landed naive and experienced at the age of twenty-four in Japan.
“Once in Osaka I received a letter from Rudolf Hostettler, editor of the Swiss journal Typografische Monatsblätter. He invited me to write contributions about Japanese forms and objects from typographer’s viewpoint.
“I called the series ’Japan Japanese’ because I intended to show my own understanding of Japan: a Japan that existed and still exists, yet one that needs to be discovered. After more than 40 years the TM articles are being given a new life (with minor changes and with additional texts).”
—Helmut Schmid
Helmut Schmid is a graphic designer born in Austria in 1942. Currently Schmid lives in Japan and continues to work vigorously. Without question, his book Typography Today, released in 1980, is one of the most significant contributions to the development of typographic design in the last few decades, but Japan Japanese is also a unique book, which revisits Schmid’s early work (1968–73) on the Swiss typography and photography magazine Typografische Monatsblätter. As a look at the precursors to the contents of Typography Today, this book offers a visual historiography of contemporary typography.
ヘルムート・シュミットはオーストリア生まれ(1942)のグラフィックデザイナー・タイポグラファーである。現在、大阪に在住しながら勢力的に活動を展開し、日本では大塚製薬「ポカリスエット」、資生堂 「ELIXIR」、「IPSA」のロゴデザインを手掛けたことでも知られるが、1980年に発表された書籍TYPOGRAPHY TODAYこそが重要な一冊であり、それに至るまでの文脈理解こそが今学ばれるべきだろう。この意味のいて、 japan japaneseはスイスのティポグラフィシェ・モナーツブレッテル(TM)誌に連載(1968年1月~1973年3月)した内容をまとめた大変資料価値の高い一冊である。
Announcements
Now is Better by Stefan Sagmeister
Now is Better
By Stefan Sagmeister
Publisher: Phaidon Press
Published: October 2023
Combining art, design, history, and quantitative analysis, transforms data sets into stunning artworks that underscore his positive view of human progress, inspiring us to think about the future with much-needed hope.
Design Emergency: Building a Better Future by Alice Rawsthorn and Paola Antonelli
Design Emergency: Building a Better Future
By Alice Rawsthorn and Paola Antonelli
Publisher: Phaidon Press
Published: May 2022
Rawsthorn and Antonelli tell the stories of the remarkable designers, architects, engineers, artists, scientists, and activists who are at the forefront of positive change worldwide. Focusing on four themes—Technology, Society, Communication, and Ecology—the authors present a unique portrait of how our great creative minds are developing new design solutions to the major challenges of our time, while helping us to benefit from advances in science and technology.
Why Design Matters: Conversations with the World’s Most Creative People by Debbie Millman
Why Design Matters: Conversations with the World's Most Creative People
By Debbie Millman
Publisher: Harper Design
Published: February 22, 2022
Debbie Millman—author, educator, brand consultant, and host of the widely successful and award-winning podcast “Design Matters”—showcases dozens of her most exciting interviews, bringing together insights and reflections from today’s leading creative minds from across diverse fields.
Milton Glaser: POP by Steven Heller, Mirko Ilić, and Beth Kleber
Milton Glaser: POP
By Steven Heller, Mirko Ilić, and Beth Kleber
Publisher: The Monacelli Press
Published: March 2023
This collection of work from graphci design legend Milton Glaser’s Pop period features hundreds of examples of the designer’s work that have not been seen since their original publication, demonstrating the graphic revolution that transformed design and popular culture.
Meet Me by the Fountain: An Inside History of the Mall by Alexandra Lange
Meet Me by the Fountain: An Inside History of the Mall
By Alexandra Lange
Publisher: Bloomsbury
Published: June 2022
Chronicles postwar architects’ and merchants’ invention of the shopping mall, revealing how the design of these marketplaces played an integral role in their cultural ascent. Publishers Weekly writes, “Contending that malls answer ‘the basic human need’ of bringing people together, influential design critic Lange advocates for retrofitting abandoned shopping centers into college campuses, senior housing, and ‘ethnocentric marketplaces’ catering to immigrant communities. Lucid and well researched, this is an insightful study of an overlooked and undervalued architectural form.”
Die Fläche: Design and Lettering of the Vienna Secession, 1902–1911 (Facsimile Edition) by Diane V. Silverthorne, Dan Reynolds, and Megan Brandow-Faller
Die Fläche: Design and Lettering of the Vienna Secession, 1902–1911 (Facsimile Edition)
By Diane V. Silverthorne, Dan Reynolds, and Megan Brandow-Faller
Publisher: Letterform Archives Books
Published: October 2023
This facsimile edition of Die Fläche, recreates every page of the formative design periodical in full color and at original size, accompanied by essays that contextualize the work, highlighting contributions by pathbreaking women, innovative lettering artists, and key practitioners of the new “surface art,” including Rudolf von Larisch, Alfred Roller, and Wiener Werkstätte founders Koloman Moser and Josef Hoffmann.
Popular NowWeekMonth
- The Book We Need Now: New from Stefan Sagmeister
- Quote of the Day: Witold Rybczynski & Paradise Planned
- Summer Reading for Design Lovers: The Story of Architecture
- One Book and Why: Design School Dean Frederick Steiner Recommends . . .
- One Book and Why: Graphic Designer Stefan Sagmeister Recommends . . .
- Book List of the Week: Milton Glaser
- Imagining Information: Symbols, Isotype, and Book Design
- “The Notebooks and Drawings of Louis I. Kahn” To Be Reissued in a New Facsimile Edition
- Do We Need a Completely New Approach to Marketing Books?
- Question Everything: A Conversation with OK-RM’s Rory McGrath