Visual analysis of Poster- Nihon Buyo

This poster might be one of the most representative posters designed by Ikko Tanaka(January 13, 1930-January 10,2002), an influential Japanese graphic designer. He's also famous for his collaboration with Muji. Tanaka is good at creating a bold and rich flavor’s imagine, through geometric shapes based on the combination of graphics and lines, meanwhile, exerting the power of typeface and layout to enhance the storytelling.

The layout of his design is always simple and harmonious, very Tanaka stylish. Tanaka combined traditional Japanese art and Western modern design principles to polish his design style, leaded strong impact to the post-war Japanese visual.

This poster called Nihon Buyo, means one traditional Japanese performing art, designed for UCLA Asian Performing Arts Institute.

Grid

If I divide this poster through 3X4 boxs and 1 pixel, we can see the this poster tightly follow the grid. It contains 12 big parts. But in these 12 parts, the color and the shape are different. The top left corner is the text, clear and obvious to indicate what is this poster used for. And other 11 parts are composed by the design derived from the typical geisha make up. But most of the parts of this design is based on linear shape, not curve shape. It shows Tanaka's ability and aesthetic concept to combine geometric with traditional Japanese culture.

Color

The utilization of color in this poster is kind of dim and not bright. It perfectly indicate the spirit of calm and prospect of Asia art and culture. And these color series make the post looks have vintage feeling, and eyes pleasant. Also due to this poster is based on the makeup of Geisha face, the white face, black hair and blue, green, red as the representation of the clothes on the body also very normal color in geisha make up and custom. And the background color, pale brown, also brought a smooth and placid sense.

Typeface

On the top left corner, Tanaka used the font of Direct Regular from ALS Direct to write the text. this font is very clear and plain, perfectly explain the purpose of this poster.

The reason of this poster fascinated me is the fusion of the classic west liner aesthetic and black space Asia aesthetic principle. The whole design is simple but full of detailed consideration of color, lines, shapes and proportion. The shape of the eyes and the lips shows the minimalist thought of the design. The way Tanaka used to transfer the traditional Japanese art form to 20th century modern design style indeed turn this piece into a classical design example.