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Graphic designer Kazumasa Nagai has designed ads for TAKEO fine paper in design magazines for 47 years, beginning with Graphic Design magazine in 1977, and continuing with Idea magazine in 1986, until the present day in 2023. These ads reflect changes in Nagai’s creative work as well as the history of TAKEO fine paper.

 

TAKEO is now making a design archive of TAKEO ads designed by Nagai publicly available on the TAKEO ARCHIVES website. TAKEO is also publishing the second and third volumes in the series of collections of original TAKEO ads designed by Nagai that started with volume one published in 1991.

 

In commemoration, this exhibition displays almost all of these ads, from the very first one to those published as recently as 2023, all under one roof. We encourage you to take advantage of this opportunity to view the rich creativity of Kazumasa Nagai’s work.

 

Advertising design

 

Kazumasa Nagai

 

Born in 1929 in Osaka Prefecture. Attended the department of sculpture at Tokyo National University of Fine Arts and Music (now Tokyo University of the Arts) until 1951. Subsequently went to work at Daiwabo Co., Ltd. as a graphic designer. Became one of the founding members of Nippon Design Center in 1959 . Served as President of Nippon Design Center from 1975 to 1986. Currently serving as Senior Executive Advisor at Nippon Design Center since 2013 and Special Adviser at Japan Graphic Designers Association (JAGDA). Continually active in the vanguard of post-war Japanese graphic design since its beginnings over seventy years ago.

 

Broad-ranging design work includes the emblem for the Sapporo ’72 Winter Olympics , corporate identity and logos for the Expo '75 International Ocean Exposition in Okinawa, Ibaraki Prefecture, Niigata Prefecture, Tokyo Electric Power Company, Asahi Breweries, Suruga Bank, JA (Japan Agricultural Cooperatives), Tsukuba Express, and Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group, as well as posters for corporate advertising, concerts, and exhibitions.

 

Continually pursues new forms of artistic expression and techniques, moving from works with geometrical shapes achieved by making free use of rulers and compasses to works with a cosmological worldview created in combination with photography, and abstract works such as relief prints, and eventually making a major shift towards figurative art using hand-drawn lines and intricate pointillism beginning with the JAPAN posters in 1987, followed by his LIFE series focusing on life. Continually pursues new forms of artistic expression, including work with etching techniques starting in the 2000s and pencil drawings today.

 

Design archive and interview

 

The “TAKEO Ads Designed by Kazumasa Nagai” design archive has been made publicly available on The TAKEO ARCHIVES website. The current version posts ads in magazine editions published up until January 1991. Ads published up until January 2023 are scheduled to be made public in July 2023. An interview with Kazumasa Nagai has also been published on the same webpage. 
TAKEO ARCHIVES, DESIGN ARCHIVES, NAGAI & TAKEO TAKEO Ads Designed by Kazumasa Nagai 

 

Books

 

Collection of TAKEO Ads Designed by Kazumasa Nagai  Vol. 2 and 3

 

Continuing on from the first volume of the collection published in 1991, the second and third volumes are scheduled for publication in July 2023. The two specially bound books are compilations of original ads by Nagai since 1991 printed on fine paper. These special collections contain bound-in original ads, so only a limited number of copies will be published.

 

Vol. 2 and 3 are scheduled for publication at the end of July 2023.

 

Planning:

TAKEO ARCHIVES

 

Direction and design: Yasuhiko Nagahara

 

Cooperation:

Editorial department at Idea magazine (Seibundo Shinkosha), Nippon Design Center