Postwar Posters

Postwar Posters is an original art catalog featuring four Japanese design masters from Japan’s Postwar period, aligned with Jilly Tranagou’s article, "Tokyo’s 1964 Olympic Design as a Realm of Design Memory" to lend context to that era's politics and culture.

Central to the book is the concept of "reveal." As Japanese design of the Postwar period played with light, gradient, and methods of revealing information, Postwar Posters is designed as a series of reveals, beginning with the cover. The cherry blossoms on the cover are laser-cut so that when the cover is opened, shadows and light come through the blossoms onto the pink paper beneath. Each piece features a title page that uses vellum printing to make a blur of the artwork, which is revealed as the user lifts. The title page and table of contents also show information through a sort of flip-book page turn. Lastly, the Risograph poster, printed pink on the back and a full design on the front, folds up into the front of the book, lending a unique Risograph texture and color to the cover's blossoms when inserted.