For Japanese cinephiles of the mid-20th Century, movie posters were even more important, as it was their job to break down the cultural and language barriers that separated them from other blockbusters around the world.
Kiroku Higaki, a Japanese poster designer, knew this. For over 60 years, he’s designed, redesigned, and adapted posters from around the world. He is one of the older film poster designers of the era who helped cultivate a love of films from foreign media. While his start was hard—earlier, he tried to go down the career path of working for a construction company—inevitably, with some adjustments from older individuals, he eventually went to the Central School of Fine Arts in Tokyo, where its design program was established in 1957, just a year before he was admitted.
Math wasn’t his strong suit, but design was always a curious passion for him since he was young.
Within the growing industry, Japan had international attention after being the first country to display the 1964 Summer Olympics in color. The eventual and rapid growth of multiple industries meant Kiroku Higaki found himself working on ads and newsletters at first. However, he soon worked alongside another legendary poster designer, Susumu Masukawa. He became skilled at photomontage and composition, then experimental and bold designs, and more. With time, he helped translate meanings visually and textually for over 600 posters.
One of the most famous movie posters that’s recognizable is the Japanese rendition of “Blade Runner (1982).” He picked contrasting color choices to avoid the original posters and put the focus on Harrison Ford so the ‘hero’ could be portrayed better for the audience. In other posters, he puts his logo on the poster—creating a fitting Japanese title for translated movies. “Suspiria (1977)” is one of the many movie posters that has a successful adaptation of katakana lettering; and, adding a different color with a focal point that is different from the original poster.
Higaki rarely watched the films he was designing for, he didn't have time to do it, he relied on trailers, their plots, and the graphic material studios gave him to work.
