Masayoshi Nakajo (b. 1933) shines a unique light of creative inventiveness within the realm of Japanese graphic design. He is widely known from his art direction of Shiseido’s corporate culture magazine Hanatsubaki and his designs of the logo and packaging of Shiseido Parlour. His works are extremely powerful, imbued with a kind of force that transcends their physical presence. Nakajo himself has said that we shouldn’t place our faith in things that are already considered beautiful: circles, squares, straight lines. Perhaps the force found in his works comes from his stance of consistently questioning others and even himself, never blindly accepting existing values, and continuously seeking new ways of expression, sometimes without fear of contradictions or of being misunderstood by others. The “power” exuded by his creative works even now continues to captivate young designers and creative artists.
 
Among the diverse areas in which Nakajo is active—graphic design, editorial design, advertising, art direction and more—this exhibition will focus on his posters. It will trace his inimitable design world over the course of roughly a half century, starting from posters Nakajo created for his first solo show in 1970s to his most recent works. Also on show will be a sampling of Nakajo’s work for Shiseido’s Hanatsubaki, a publication that, through his near 40 years of art direction, established the image of a pioneering culture magazine. We hope the exhibition will give visitors an opportunity to know the unique worldview of Masayoshi Nakajo’s design work—work that goes beyond dualistic evaluative parameters of old or new, beautiful or ugly, clever or clumsy.


■Profile
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Masayoshi Nakajo was born in Tokyo in 1933. In 1956, after graduating from Tokyo National University of Fine Arts & Music (now called Tokyo University of the Arts), where he majored in Design, he joined the advertising department at Shiseido. Later he moved to Deska until 1961, when he established Nakajo Design Office. Nakajo's major work in a career now spanning more than four decades includes: art direction and design for Hanatsubaki, Shiseido's cultural magazine, and for The Ginza / Tactics Design; logo and packaging design for Shiseido Parlour; logo and signage planning for the Tokyo Ginza Shiseido Building; corporate identity (CI) planning for Matsuya Ginza, Wacoal Spiral, the Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo, and Hosomi Museum; illustrations for "Nihongo de Asobo" (Let's Play in Japanese), a children's program on NHK; and cover illustrations for Kurashi no Techo magazine. Among his numerous awards received to date are the Tokyo Art Directors Club Members Award Grand Prize, the Tokyo Type Directors Club Members'  Gold Prize, the Yusaku Kamekura Design Award, the Mainichi Design Award, the Japan Advertising Awards' Yamana Prize, and —from the Japanese Government— a Medal of Honor with Purple Ribbon and The Order of the Rising Sun, Gold Rays with Rosette. Nakajo is a member of the Tokyo Art Directors Club, Japan Graphic Designers Association and Tokyo Illustrators Society, and he currently serves as Senior Vice President of the Tokyo Type Directors Club. He is also a visiting professor at Joshibi University of Art and Design.