This session introduces the audience to the work of two prominent post-war typographers and book designers in Japan: Etsushi Kiyohara and Helmut Schmid. Taro Yamamota carefully examines their unique interpretations, which were influenced by modernist styles imported from the West. He will also consider the historical conditions of typographic studies during the postwar era and beyond, and attempt to clarify an important aspect of twentieth-century modernism reflected in typographic works created in Japan.
Date
Thursday, September 5th 2019
Two Post-War Typographers and Modernism
Speaker
Taro Yamamoto
Taro Yamamoto received a BFA from Musashino Art University in 1983, where he majored in typography. After a stint doing type development with Morisawa, he joined Adobe in 1992. He led the design team that produced Adobe’s original Japanese typefaces, under the direction of Masahiko Kozuka. Following Kozuka's retirement, Yamamoto has been involved in the development of Adobe’s Japanese fonts, and the Pan-CJK font development project by Adobe and Google, as Senior Manager of Japanese Typography. He is also the ATypI country delegate for Japan, and President of the Society of Typography, Japan. He translated Robin Kinross’s book: Modern typography: an essay in critical history into Japanese, and it was published by Graphic-sha Publishing in November 2020