Japan Japanese
From the Publisher. “The quiet beauty of things Japanese. It is the foreign forms, the foreign sounds which are so fascinating. The unmistakable, monotone Sutra recitation of Buddhist monks. The windy, mystical sound of the shakuhachi bamboo flute. The delicate, thin sound of the who mouth organ in the music of Gagaku and Bugaku.
“It is a fine world which exists despite the noise of the time. A world, which does not come forward, but one which invites to enter.
My curiosity having been aroused by Utamaro’s erotic lines and inspired by Emil Ruder, I landed naive and experienced at the age of twenty-four in Japan.
“Once in Osaka I received a letter from Rudolf Hostettler, editor of the Swiss journal Typografische Monatsblätter. He invited me to write contributions about Japanese forms and objects from typographer’s viewpoint.
“I called the series ’Japan Japanese’ because I intended to show my own understanding of Japan: a Japan that existed and still exists, yet one that needs to be discovered. After more than 40 years the TM articles are being given a new life (with minor changes and with additional texts).”
—Helmut Schmid
Helmut Schmid is a graphic designer born in Austria in 1942. Currently Schmid lives in Japan and continues to work vigorously. Without question, his book Typography Today, released in 1980, is one of the most significant contributions to the development of typographic design in the last few decades, but Japan Japanese is also a unique book, which revisits Schmid’s early work (1968–73) on the Swiss typography and photography magazine Typografische Monatsblätter. As a look at the precursors to the contents of Typography Today, this book offers a visual historiography of contemporary typography.
ヘルムート・シュミットはオーストリア生まれ(1942)のグラフィックデザイナー・タイポグラファーである。現在、大阪に在住しながら勢力的に活動を展開し、日本では大塚製薬「ポカリスエット」、資生堂 「ELIXIR」、「IPSA」のロゴデザインを手掛けたことでも知られるが、1980年に発表された書籍TYPOGRAPHY TODAYこそが重要な一冊であり、それに至るまでの文脈理解こそが今学ばれるべきだろう。この意味のいて、 japan japaneseはスイスのティポグラフィシェ・モナーツブレッテル(TM)誌に連載（1968年1月～1973年3月）した内容をまとめた大変資料価値の高い一冊である。
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Understanding Understanding: New from Richard Saul Wurman
Understanding Understanding
by Richard Saul Wurman
Publisher: Richard Saul Wurman and Jack Dangermond
Published July 30, 2017
From the author of Information Architecture, who says about his newest book: “This is a book for people to dip into, as they would walk in and out of the room of a dinner party and embrace their interests. . . Before the rules on how to organize information, before you learn grammar, before you work hard at expanding your vocabulary and go through the exercises of parallel meanings of things as using a Thesaurus and as one writes papers in class, before any learning one must understand.”
The Hard Life by Jasper Morrison
The Hard Life
by Jasper Morrison
Publisher: Lars Müller Publishers
Published in US: May 22, 2017
Photographs taken by designer Jasper Morrison of objects in the collection of the National Museum of Ethnology in Lisbon, Portugal. “The objects photographed and described may be appreciated both for their beauty and for the example they set of design at its purest. The Hard Life is a continuation of Morrison’s celebration of the ordinary and offers a new perspective on his design philosophy.”
Paula Scher: Works - Order from Unit Editions
Paula Scher: Works
Editors: Tony Brook & Adrian Shaughnessy
Design: Spin
Publisher: Unit Editions
Published April 2017
New book covering the career of of master designer Paula Scher, called “the most influential woman graphic designer on the planet.” (Ellen Lupton), This definitive, chronological visual record spans Paula’s early days in the music industry as an art director with CBS and Atlantic records; the launch of her first studio, Koppel & Scher; and her 25-year engagement with Pentagram.
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Type Tells Tales: New from Steven Heller and Gail Anderson
Type Tells Tales
by Steven Heller and Gail Anderson
Publisher: Yale University Press
Published May 30, 2017
Reveals how type can become both content and illustration, as letters take the form of people, animals, cars, or planes. With numerous illustrations by F. T. Marinetti, Bruno Munari, and Francis Picabia, among others, as well as by contemporary designers such as Richard Eckersley, John Hendrix, Maira Kalman, and Corita Kent.
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