“Design X Printing = GRAPH”
GRAPH was born in 1989 in a small village set amidst verdant fields. Its corporate identity traces back to a printing factory of long standing, having been founded in 1933. GRAPH creates new value by integrating design with a traditional focus on craftsmanship. This methodology, so natural in our contemporary world, is a philosophy that GRAPH first began putting into practice roughly 30 years ago.
The key figure behind GRAPH, and its principal, is Issay Kitagawa. Despite his reputation for being a maverick in the industry, Kitagawa is one of Japan’s leading art directors who wins the supreme trust of his clients. His sense of artistic creation, born from his searching quest for deepest roots, coupled with his inimitable design work, born from a keen business perspective having local and global parameters securely in view, infuse Kitagawa’s work with a unique presence that powerfully takes hold of every viewer’s heart and mind.
This exhibition will focus on the secrets that enable Issay Kitagawa and GRAPH to continuously create communication designs that resonate deeply while, with supreme agility, crossing the boundaries between different genres: creativity and business, design and printing, designer and business operator. From the perspective of analytical dissection, the works on show are of remarkable variety: from “Issay Kitagawa’s design workplace” to “a reproduction of a bookshelf containing the sources of creation,” “design market where works on display can be purchased,” “experiments in the processes of design and printing” and, for some reason, “festival stalls.”
This is sure to be an exhibition offering a glimpse into the future of Japanese design and craftsmanship as seen from the front lines of everyday communication.