Proof 1963 : Graphic Design For Practical Use. Japanese Graphic Design.

Tosho Printing Co. [1963?]. 24x26cm publisher's flexible printed card, plastic comb bound; 106pp and a sheet with cut outs to be placed over the colour chart at the end. Corners of two adjacent leaves have been clipped, one at the top and one at the bottom, not for any discernible reason. I first wondered whether this was part of the design but I'm sure it's not. Industrial Jansenism on the outside and show printing and art on the inside. This is advanced, sharp edged sixties graphic design, sweeping away the suburban roccoco curlicues of the fifties and before the basement nouveau curlicues of psychedelia. Hip but not hippy. Artists include Manabe Hiroshi, Kiyohara Etsushi, Iwasaki Kenji, Matsunaga Kenichi, Nakagawa Keiji, Takasugi Jiro, and Sato Tomoshige, the colour chart by Katsui Mitsuo.Tosho was no shrimp in 1963 and now seems a massive corporate slug despite having shed imagination, style, any sense of excitement, and other such encumbrances along the way. I base this near impartial judgment on a few minutes survey of their website.Worldcat finds no entries, neither does NDL; Cinii finds one copy, in Nara.