Yusaku Kamekura: posters, photography and design institutions

Collaboration across four posters

The first Olympic poster combines a red sun, the rings and lettering. The next three add staged athlete photographs by Osamu Hayasaki. American and Japanese track athletes modelled for poster two; Japanese university athletes appeared in posters three and four. These are designed promotional images, not records of Olympic competitions. Designer, photographer and athlete models contributed different parts to the finished posters.

The second poster’s composition

In the 1962 poster, closely cropped sprinters lean forward against a dark background above large TOKYO 1964 lettering. The red disc and Olympic rings connect this photograph to the first poster’s graphic design.

Publishing work and professional design

In the late 1930s Kamekura joined Nippon Kobo, working with outward-facing propaganda publications such as NIPPON. After the war, he participated in the Japan Advertising Artists Club in 1951 and Japan Design Center in 1960, then established his own office in 1962. Wartime propaganda and postwar commercial and international commissions belong to different working contexts.

Design education and Graphic ’55

Kamekura studied Bauhaus-derived composition at Renshichiro Kawakita’s Institute of New Architecture and Industrial Arts from 1935. He later participated in Graphic ’55, an exhibition in 1955. Formal study, publishing work and collective exhibitions formed part of his professional experience before the Olympic commission.

Other commissions and organisations

Kamekura’s work included the Good Design mark, NTT’s symbol and Nikon advertisements, alongside posters for Expo ’70 and other events and campaigns. These commissions combined images, lettering and colour in forms intended for reproduction. In 1978 he became the founding president of the Japan Graphic Design Association, or JAGDA, extending his work into professional organisation and exchange.

Hiroshima Appeals 1983

For Hiroshima Appeals 1983, Kamekura used falling, burning butterflies, illustrated by Akira Yokoyama. This was the first poster in a campaign jointly organised by JAGDA and the Hiroshima International Cultural Foundation.

Recruit published the quarterly Creation from 1989 to 1994, completing twenty issues. Kamekura selected international artists and designers and arranged their work on the page. Surviving manuscripts, rough sketches and proofs document these editorial decisions. His role was to choose and present the material, rather than to make each reproduced artwork.