Graphic Designer and Artist | Ryuichi Yamashiro
Graphic Designer and Artist | Ryuichi Yamashiro
Ryuichi Yamashiro, known as 山城隆一 (Yamashiro Ryuichi) in Japanese, was a multi award winning Graphic Designer, Illustrator, Art Director and Artist of the post war error. Born in 1920, created many incredible designs and art works before passing away in the mid 90s.
Here, I've shown one of his whimsical cat paintings alongside what is perhaps his best known work, "Forest" or 森林 - a typographic poster design, created and silk scren printed in 1954. This stunning piece now lives at the MoMA.
Forest by Yamashiro Ryuichi
Forest is a typographic design using the kanji alphabet - it promotes tree planting and condemns deforestation. This is Yamashiro’s internationally best known piece of work.
The Kanji characters are logograms of Chinese origin. The kanji for tree, “Ki” 木 looks like a tree, a symbol with two tree drawings is 林 "hayashi" meaning forest, and three trees is 森 "mori" meaning woods. The two kanji combined forms a new word, "shinrin" which means woodlands.
The dense typographic forest is pushed back by the negative space, perhaps symbolising urbanisation and deforestation. Although created 7 decades ago, this beautiful piece of Japanese graphic design feels more relevant than ever now.
Cat Paintings and Prints
In stark stylistic and thematic contrast to Forest is Yamashiro’s series of cats. The collections of cute and humorous cats painted in beautiful pastel colours are compiled into books with titles such as 猫がいて幸せ “The joys of having cats” and 猫のいる風景 “Scenes with cats”.
The motive behind these pieces seem to be simple, cats brought joy to his life, and he wished for his paintings of cats to bring joy to others. Although not very well known in the Western world, these quirky cat paintings have been adored by the Japanese for many years.
This simple desire to spread joy through playful art seems to be common in creatives from the post war period. Another artist from this era who explored both serious issues and a sense of optimism in their art is Takashi Yanase, the creator of Anpanman. (Read about the existentialist superhero with a red bean bun face here)
This makes total sense to me, as my Japanese grandmother who survived the war and post war period was the most cheerful and humorous person I’ve known. Playfulness, cuteness and kawaii culture can be viewed as a form of resilience and kindness that comes from enduring hardships.
A Multidisciplinary Creative Legend
Yamashiro’s work knows no boundaries. He used typography in an incredibly powerful artistic manner for Forest. He was a legendary art director in the Japanese advertising world, while also being adored as a quirky painter of cats. His work both provokes deep thought and provides comfort and optimism. What a true inspiration.
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