Through some 300 objects, this book explores contemporary Japanese design: from everyday objects and packaging to interior design and lighting elements.

Ultimately the book aims to explore the way in which Japanese design manages to harness its materials – whether natural or synthetic – and at the same time combines respect for tradition with forward-thinking and experimentation.

The objects featured were chosen because of their strong Japanese character and the influence this 'Japaneseness' has had on Western culture. Rather than following a chronological order or concentrating on the designers, this book focuses on the objects and is categorized by material, highlighting the strong link between design and material in Japan.

The book will include examples from some of the most important Japanese designers from Sori Yanagi and Shiro Kuramata to Naoto Fukasawa and Tokujin Yoshioka and there will be an introductory essay about Japanese design by Kenya Hara.

 - In this exquisitely produced book, readers can explore the beauty, essence, and enduring impact of Japanese design through 300 key objects, ranging from calligraphy brushes and traditional lacquered bento boxes to Isamu Noguchi’s paper lamps and other modern classics
 - Features contributions from the most important Japanese designers, such as Shiro Kuramata, Naoto Fukasawa and Sori Yanagi, alongside contemporary pieces from up-and-coming designers
 - Printed on craft paper and bound in the traditional Japanese style, the book itself is a beautiful object sure to inspire anyone interested in design

Contents and Sections:

Reinventing Tradition: From Craft to Design Rossella Menegazzo
The Origins of Japanese Design Kenya Hara

Wood, Bamboo & Lacquer
Paper
Metal
Fabric & Textiles
Ceramic
Synthetic/new materials

About the Authors:

Rossella Menegazzo is Associate Professor of History of East Asian Art at the Università degli Studi of Milan. She completed her PhD Course in Oriental Studies at Ca’ Foscari University of Venice in 2009, with a dissertation on Japanese art history and photography. She has curated several events and exhibitions and is the author of numerous texts on Japanese photography, graphic design and ukiyoe. She is a regular contributor to a number of national newspapers, writing articles on Japanese culture and art.

Stefania Piotti received her BA in East Asian studies from Ca' Foscari University of Venice specializing in Japanese textiles and the development of kimono design and patterns in particular. She has worked as translator and scientific coordinator in various exhibitions on Japanese art and as editor of Italian and English publications such as Imai. A Retrospective (Electa, 1998), Hokusai (Phaidon, 2004) and Japan Style (Phaidon, 2007).

Shunmyo Masuno, Japan's leading garden designer, is at once Japan's most highly acclaimed landscape architect and an 18th-generation Zen Buddhist priest, presiding over daily ceremonies at the Kenkoji Temple in Yokohama. He is celebrated for his unique ability to blend strikingly contemporary elements with the traditional design vernacular. He has worked in ultramodern urban hotels and in some of Japan's most famous classic gardens. In each project, his work as a designer is inseparable from his Buddhist practice. Each becomes a Zen garden, "a special spiritual place where the mind dwells."

This beautiful book, illustrated with more than 400 drawings and color photographs, is the first complete retrospective of Masuno's work to be published in English. It presents 37 major gardens around the world in a wide variety of types and settings: traditional and contemporary, urban and rural, public spaces and private residences, and including temple, office, hotel and campus venues. Masuno achieved fame for his work in Japan, but he is becoming increasingly known internationally, and in 2011 completed his first commission in the United States which is shown here.

Zen Gardens divided into three chapters, covers: "Traditional Zen Gardens," "Contemporary Zen Gardens" and "Zen Gardens outside Japan." Illustrated with photographs and architectural plans or sketches, each garden is described and analyzed by author Mira Locher, herself an architect and a scholar well versed in Japanese culture.

Celebrating the accomplishments of a major, world-class designer, Zen Gardens also serves as something of a master class in Japanese garden design and appreciation: how to perceive a Japanese garden, how to understand one, even how to make one yourself. Like one of Masuno's gardens, the book can be a place for contemplation and mindful repose.

About the Author:

Mira Locher is an architect and professor who works in the U.S. and Japan. She studied at Smith College before receiving her Master of Architecture degree from the University of Pennsylvania. After working for Team Zoo Atelier Mobile in Japan for seven years, she set up an architectural practice in the U.S. with Takayuki Murakami. Mira Locher is Dean of the Faculty of Architecture at the University of Manitoba (Canada). She is the author of Super Potato Design, Zen Gardens and Zen Garden Design.

In The Art of the Japanese Sword, master swordsmith Yoshindo Yoshihara offers a comprehensive view on the making, finishing and appreciation of Japanese blades.

The Japanese sword, a unique work of art in steel, can be appreciated from a number of viewpoints. Its functionality as a weapon, the sophisticated metallurgy and scientific thinking utilized by the swordsmith, the shape of the blade itself, and the different crystalline forms in the steel all contribute to the beauty of these remarkable weapons. The Art of the Japanese Sword conveys to the reader a basic background regarding the Japanese sword, as well as an explanation of how to view and appreciate a blade. It also illustrates the details of how a sword is made and finished today.

Modern craftsmen use completely traditional methods from the past to prepare their steel, forge the sword and create the unique hardened edge. By gaining a good understanding of how a sword is actually made, the reader will be able to appreciate the Japanese sword more fully.

Japanese sword art stands out in many ways: functionality as a weapon, sophisticated metallurgy and metalsmithing, the shape of the blade itself--all contribute to the beauty of these remarkable weapons. The Art of the Japanese Sword conveys to the reader Japanese samurai sword history and Japanese sword care, as well as explaining how to view and appreciate a blade.

With 256 full-color pages, this sword book illustrates in meticulous detail how modern craftsmen use traditional methods to prepare their steel, forge the sword and create the unique hardened edge. By gaining a good understanding of how a sword is made, the reader will be able to appreciate the samurai sword more fully. Topics include:

- Appreciating the Japanese sword
- History of the Japanese sword
- Traditional Japanese steelmaking
- Making the sword
- Finishing the sword

About the Authors:

Yoshindo Yoshihara is a third-generation swordsmith. His grandfather Kuniie began making swords in 1933 in Tokyo and was ranked among the top swordsmiths in Japan during his career. Yoshindo lives and works in Tokyo with his son, who represents the fourth generation of swordsmiths in the family. Yoshindo, who is always training young swordsmiths and currently has five apprentices working with him, has been named an Important Cultural Property of the city and prefecture of Tokyo and is a mukansa (top-ranked swordsmith) in Japan.

Leon Kapp, a molecular biologist, lives with his wife Hiroko in San Rafael, California. He has been seriously interested in Japanese swords for over twenty-five years and has spent a great deal of time learning about them from Yoshindo.

Hiroko Kapp is a writer for Senken Shimbun News of Tokyo and writes about fashion and the fashion industry in the US. She graduated from Musashi-no Art University in Tokyo. For twenty-five years, she was active in the apparel business and designed scarves for her own line in the US.

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Ukiyo-e ("pictures of the floating world") is an art form that originated in the metropolitan culture of Edo (Tokyo) in the early seventeenth century and involved collaboration between artist, carver, printer and publisher. Printed on fragile paper using a technique of woodcut or woodblock printing, the early black and white designs soon gave way to delicate two-colour prints and then to multicoloured prints. Favourite subjects were portraits of beautiful geisha and courtesans, popular kabuki actors and sumo wrestlers, erotica, scenes from nature, historical subjects and even foreigners in Japan.

The charming, carefully selected ukiyo-e in this book reflect not only Japan's rich history and way of life but also reveal the author's love affair with an art form that has captured the imagination of people all over the world./p>

At the heart of a Japanese garden is harmony with nature. More than simply a landscape of trees and flowering shrubs, a Japanese garden provides a place of serenity and rest, filled with peaceful spots that lend themselves to meditation and contemplation. Japanese Gardens celebrates and illustrates this ideal, showcasing the exquisite natural beauty of more than 20 quintessentially Japanese gardens-big and small, urban and rural, traditional and contemporary.

The expert author-and-photographer team behind this book excels at capturing and explaining the essential elements and techniques that distinguish Japanese gardens from those of other countries. The featured sites range from large feudal period gardens, temple gardens and private and countryside gardens to mountain flower gardens, tea gardens and gardens devoted to miniature bonsai.

An introduction to the Japanese art of living of Ogata through the vision of its founder, Shinichiro Ogata.

As an expert in the cultures and traditions of ancient Japan, Shinichiro Ogata has dedicated himself to a contemporary reinvention of this solemn yet simple ideal of a harmonious life. His eponymous spaces in Japan and Paris are at once a tea salon, pastry shop, restaurant, bar, art gallery, and crafts and housewares store where every element is infused with a pared-back, refined style, holistically in tune with surroundings and nature.

Beautifully printed, this elegant volume provides a comprehensive overview of Japanese art of living, with chapters on tea, cuisine, wagashi (traditional confections), crafts, fragrance, and floral art. Readers are invited to consider a new outlook, nourished by millennia-old traditions and materialized through exquisite objects and sensorial experiences. Each section explores the details and innovative possibilities for deeply rooted traditions as well as the social and aesthetic rules that sustain them, while beautiful photographs showcase Ogata’s signature design as well as its flagship Paris space. Written in the first person, Shinichiro Ogata’s text offers a deeper understanding of his creative process and unique aesthetic vision. This is an exquisite book for aficionados of Japanese refinement and craftsmanship.

About the Authors:

Shinichiro Ogata is a Japanese designer. He founded Simplicity Co., Ltd. in 1998, a multidisciplinary company with activities ranging from a design studio to tea, cuisine, wagashi, crafts, and other fields. Ogata opened in Paris in 2020. Dennis Paphitis is the founder of Aesop. Kei Osawa is a French-Japanese researcher and curator at the University Museum, the University of Tokyo.

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Japandi is the newest and hottest trend in interiors: a harmonious combination of functionality, comfort, and the minimalist look that characterizes Scandinavian design with the purest elegance of traditional Japanese craftsmanship.

Japandi harmoniously blends Scandinavian hygge with wabi-sabi, a concept derived from Zen Buddhism that advocates peaceful sobriety and invites us to admire the beauty hidden in slight imperfections in nature. This first major survey of Japandi style will introduce the reader to the fundamentals and to iconic objects that will transform an interior into a Japandi-inspired retreat.

Chapter one of the book examines the converging principles that have contributed to the emergence of Japandi Style such as functionality, neutral colors, the importance of organic materials, and the thoughtful simplicity of shapes. Chapter two presents some of the most emblematic works of Japandi Style, and the design studios behind them. Chapter three gives examples of how to decorate and furnish rooms - the living room, dining room, bedroom, bathroom, winter garden, or home office - in Japandi Style.

About the Author:

Agata Toromanoff is an art and design historian who has curated numerous contemporary art projects. She has written features for the art press and is the author of several books, including Chairs by Architects (2016), Sofas: 340 Iconic Designs (2018), Vases: 250 State-of-the-Art Designs (2019) and Designs for Children (2022). Pierre Toromanoff studied mathematics and Russian literature. After a career of over twenty years in the book industry as international sales manager and then as managing director for several art publishers, he co-founded with his wife Agata a book packaging agency in 2014. Since then, he has authored several publications on contemporary art, pop culture, and fashion.

For the art enthusiast, the doll collector, as well as the casual reader, the world of Japanese dolls is a fascinating one to explore. For many centuries Japanese doll artisans created spectacular works of art, invested with both significant cultural meaning and elemental beauty. The focus of this book is on collecting: What types of ningyo are available for the collector of today? What are some of the features and characteristics which will help collectors identify the ningyo they find and evaluate them? Who were some of the earliest collectors in Japan, Europe, and the United States? and, How do we preserve and care for these invaluable artifacts from Japan's past?

About the Author:

Alan Pate was born in Florida and studied in France, Korea and the US. He has an MA in East Asian Studies from Harvard University. He is the owner of the Japanese antique firm Akanezumiya in St Ignatius, Montana, specializing in the religious and figural art of Japan from the Edo period and earlier. He is the leading expert on Japanese dolls in the US, where he has curated exhibitions and lectured extensively. He has also published widely in journals focusing on Japanese antiques. He has been appointed Guest Curator for an exhibition on important US collections of Japanese dolls to be held at the Mingei International Museum in San Diego, CA, in 2005.

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Following up on Layout Now and Color Now, SendPoints continues to craft practical guidebooks for readers in the design cosmos. This time, it is about the type, which we read and use every day.

Typography Now guides readers through everything they need to know to understand, create, and use Latin, Chinese, and Japanese typefaces in an increasingly interrelated world. The fundamentals, including typographic terms, character structures, style classifications, size, weight, text families, and more will provide readers with prerequisite knowledge to understand and identify different types. Typography Now introduces readers to esteemed type foundries and their design processes and techniques to demonstrate how type is created. The coverage of layout rules will help readers grasp how to effectively design with text on the page as well as combine text with mixed scripts (Chinese, Japanese, and Roman).

In addition, you will find some of the best examples of typographic choices, as well as talks with experts at type foundries about the present and future of type, and demonstrations of some of the hottest new typefaces.

'a mixture of artistic sensibility and imagery that leaves nothing to the imagination'  - The Telegraph

In early modern Japan, thousands of sexually explicit paintings, prints, and illustrated books with texts were produced. These were euphemistically called ‘spring pictures’ (shunga) and were originally created by the artists of the ukiyo-e school of the floating world to advertise brothels in 17th-century Yoshiwara, including the celebrated artists Utamaro and Hokusai.

This catalogue of an exhibition in 2013/4 at the British Museum aims to answer some key questions about what shunga is and why was it produced. Erotic Japanese art was heavily suppressed in Japan from the 1870s onwards and it is only in the last twenty years or so has it been possible to publish unexpurgated examples in Japan. 

Drawing on the latest scholarship and featuring over 400 images of works from major public and private collections, this book sheds new light on this unique art form within Japanese social and cultural history.

About the author:

Timothy Clark, Head of Japanese Section, British Museum

Station to Station. A historic trail through the heart of Japan, as told by two legendary woodblock artists

This XXL edition reprints Keisai Eisen and Utagawa Hiroshige’s legendary series The Sixty-Nine Stations along the Kisokaidō, a stunning representation of the historic route between Edo (Tokyo) and Kyoto. Sourced from one of the finest surviving first editions, this vivid tapestry of 19th-century Japan is in equal parts a major artifact of its imperial past and a masterwork of woodblock practice.

The Kisokaidō route through Japan was ordained in the early 1600s by the country’s then-ruler Tokugawa Ieyasu, who decreed that staging posts be installed along the length of the arduous passage between Edo (present-day Tokyo) and Kyoto. Inns, shops, and restaurants were established to provide sustenance and lodging to weary travelers. In 1835, renowned woodblock print artist Keisai Eisen was commissioned to create a series of works to chart the Kisokaidō journey. After producing 24 prints, Eisen was replaced by Utagawa Hiroshige, who completed the series of 70 prints in 1838.

Both Eisen and Hiroshige were master print practitioners. In The Sixty-Nine Stations along the Kisokaidō, we find the artists’ distinct styles as much as their shared expertise. From the busy starting post of Nihonbashi to the castle town of Iwamurata, Eisen opts for a more muted palette but excels in figuration, particularly of glamorous women, and relishes snapshots of activity along the route, from shoeing a horse to winnowing rice. Hiroshige demonstrates his mastery of landscape with grandiose and evocative scenes, whether it’s the peaceful banks of the Ota River, the forbidding Wada Pass, or a moonlit ascent between Yawata and Mochizuki.

Taken as a whole, The Sixty-Nine Stations collection represents not only a masterpiece of woodblock practice, including bold compositions and an experimental use of color, but also a charming tapestry of 19th-century Japan, long before the specter of industrialization. This TASCHEN XXL edition revives the series with due scale and splendor. Sourced from the only-known set of a near-complete run of the first edition of the series, this legendary publication is reproduced in optimum quality, bound in the Japanese tradition and with uncut paper. A perfect companion piece to TASCHEN’s One Hundred Famous Views of Edo, it is at once a visual delight and a major artifact from the bygone era of Imperial Japan.

The editor and author:

Andreas Marks studied East Asian art history at the University of Bonn and obtained his PhD in Japanese studies from Leiden University with a thesis on 19th-century actor prints. From 2008 to 2013 he was director and chief curator of the Clark Center for Japanese Art in Hanford, California, and since 2013 has been the Mary Griggs Burke Curator of Japanese and Korean Art, head of the Department of Japanese and Korean Art, and director of the Clark Center for Japanese Art at the Minneapolis Institute of Art.

The author:

Rhiannon Paget studied at Tokyo University of the Arts and received her doctorate in Japanese Art History from the University of Sydney, Australia. The curator of Asian art at the John & Mable Ringling Museum of Art in Sarasota, Florida, she has published research on Japanese woodblock prints, textiles, board games, and nihonga.

Woodblock Wonders. A visual history of 200 Japanese masterpieces

The Japanese woodblock print is a phenomenon with no Western equivalent, one where breathtaking landscapes exist alongside blush-inducing erotica; where demons and otherworldly creatures torment the living; and where sumo wrestlers, kabuki actors, and courtesans are rock stars. This XXL book lifts the veil on a much-loved but little-understood art, revealing the stories and people behind the 200 most exceptional prints from 1680–1938. Drawing from the finest impressions in museums and private collections around the world, it features the work of 89 artists as well as 17 fold-outs.

From Edouard Manet’s portrait of naturalist writer Émile Zola sitting among his Japanese art finds to Van Gogh’s meticulous copies of the Hiroshige prints he devotedly collected, 19th-century pioneers of European modernism made no secret of their love of Japanese art. In all its sensuality, freedom, and effervescence, the woodblock print is single-handedly credited with the wave of japonaiserie that first enthralled France and, later, all of Europe — but often remains misunderstood as an “exotic” artifact that helped inspire Western creativity.

The fact is that the Japanese woodblock print is a phenomenon of which there exists no Western equivalent. Some of the most disruptive ideas in modern art — including, as Karl Marx put it, that “all that is solid melts into air” — were invented in Japan in the 1700s and expressed like never before in the designs of such masters as Hokusai, Utamaro, and Hiroshige in the early 19th century.

This book lifts the veil on a much-loved but little-understood art form by presenting the 200 most exceptional Japanese woodblock prints in their historical context. Ranging from the 17th-century development of decadent ukiyo-e, or “pictures of the floating world,” to the decline and later resurgence of prints in the early 20th century, the images collected in this edition make up an unmatched record not only of a unique genre in art history, but also of the shifting mores and cultural development of Japan.

From mystical mountains to snowy passes, samurai swordsmen to sex workers in shop windows, each piece is explored as a work of art in its own right, revealing the stories and people behind the motifs. We discover the four pillars of the woodblock print — beauties, actors, landscapes, and bird-and-flower compositions — alongside depictions of sumo wrestlers, kabuki actors, or enticing courtesans — rock stars who populated the “floating world” and whose fan bases fueled the frenzied production of woodblock prints. We delve into the horrifying and the obscure in prints where demons, ghosts, man-eaters, and otherworldly creatures torment the living —stunning images that continue to influence Japanese manga, film, and video games to this day. We witness how, in their incredible breadth, from everyday scenes to erotica, the martial to the mythological, these works are united by the technical mastery and infallible eye of their creators and how, with tremendous ingenuity and tongue-in-cheek wit, publishers and artists alike fought to circumvent government censorship.

Three years in the making, this XXL edition presents reproductions of the finest extant impressions from the vaults of museums and private collections across the globe — many newly photographed, especially for this project. Some 17 stunning fold-outs invite us to study even the subtlest details, while extensive descriptions guide us through this frantic period in Japanese art history.

Features:

- The work of 89 artists, from the world-renowned to the unfamiliar
- 7 chapters organized chronologically to trace the history of the medium from 1680 to 1938
- 17 fold-outs, which had to be hand-folded due to their size and specifications
- Exclusive reproductions from museums and private collections
- An appendix listing all artists and works

The author:

Andreas Marks studied East Asian art history at the University of Bonn and obtained his PhD in Japanese studies from Leiden University with a thesis on 19th-century actor prints. From 2008 to 2013 he was director and chief curator of the Clark Center for Japanese Art in Hanford, California, and since 2013 has been the Mary Griggs Burke Curator of Japanese and Korean Art, head of the Department of Japanese and Korean Art, and director of the Clark Center for Japanese Art at the Minneapolis Institute of Art.

A fascinating journey through the world of anime and manga, their genres and styles, roots and creators.

An accessible, informative and fascinating journey through the world of anime and manga, their genres and styles (from the most commercial to the most cutting-edge), their roots and their creators. With a wealth of iconographic content, this book will be the reference book for anyone interested in discovering the diversity and originality of manga and anime.

About the Authors:

Philip Brophy is a musician, filmmaker, writer and academic.
Carlo Chatrian is a film critic and consultant for several film festivals.
Jonathan Clements is the author of Schoolgirl Milky Crisis: Adventures in Anime and co-author of The Anime Encyclopedia.
Luca Della Casa is a selector of anime and Asian films for Bologna’s Future Film Festival.
Stephane Delorme is Editor-in-chief of Cahiers du cinéma.
Davide Di Giorgio is a film critic and author of a Japanese animation column for the webmagazine Sentieri Selvaggi.
Daniele Dottorini is a film critic, lecturer and consultant for several film festivals.
Stefano Gariglio works in movie subtitling and is a member of the neo(N)eiga cultural association.
Paul Gravett is a critic, lecturer, curator and historian specializing in international comic art.
Erwan Higuinen is a journalist and film critic for Libération, Cahiers du cinéma and Les Inrockuptibles.
Fabrizio Liberti is film programmer for Italian television channel Rai Uno.
Helen McCarthy is the author of The Art of Osamu Tezuka: God of Manga and co-author of The Anime Encyclopedia.
Fabrizio Modina is a multitalented creative and an internationally renowned collector of toys.
Giona A.Nazzaro is a film critic and programmer at the Festival dei Popoli, Florence.
Maria Roberta Novielli teaches Japanese cinema at the University Ca’ Foscari, Venice.
Grazia Paganelli is a film critic and film programmer at the National Museum of Cinema, Turin.
Gianni Rondolino is an internationally renowned cinema historian and columnist for La Stampa.
Michel Roudevitch is a cartoonist, screenwriter, animator and director who has worked in the animated cinema industry since the Sixties.
Mario A. Rumor is editor of MANGA! magazine.
Stephen Sarrazin is a film and media art critic, curator and professor.
David Surman teaches Computer Game Design at the University of Wales, Newport.

Shunga portrays the erotic expression of a couple with pleasures and pains, and the beauty of their bodies with the finest Japanese woodblock print technique. It is a type of Ukiyo-e, which was especially all the rage among people in the Edo period (17th-19th century). Almost all ukiyo-e artists made shunga at some point in their careers. 

This big book of 586 pages features various Shunga works by masters of Ukiyo-e artists such as Hokusai Katsushika, Utamaro Kitagawa, Kuniyoshi Utagawa, Kiyonaga Torii, and Eisen Keisai. 

The magic by Kazuya Tkaoka, art director for this book, and our successful title Hokusai Manga, makes this book a one-of-a-kind Shunga collection.

Japanese Erotica in Contemporary Art is a comprehensive exploration of contemporary erotic arts in Japan, covering more than 50 artists. 

Featuring work ranging from illustrations, dolls, contemporary art, comics, anime, and much more. Also included are bilingual overviews and expositions of the latest Japanese erotic art, with detailed analysis on each category. For this reason, this book is recommended for both men and women, art lover, Japanese subculture maniacs, "Gothic" and "Lolita" enthusiasts, and Anime fans. 

Featuring art by: Simon Yotsuya; Takato Yamamoto; Akira Uno; Hajime Sorayama; Junko Mizuno; Suehiro Maruo; Makiko Sugawa; Yoshifumi Hayashi; and many more.