People’s Graphic Design Archive

APPLE+

Wed, 23 Sep 2026 18:47:41 +0000

APPLE+ is a poster designed by 三木健 Ken Miki for his “APPLE＋ Learning to Design, Designing to Learn” Exhibition held at ginza graphic gallery (ggg) in 2015. Multiple designs of the poster were made, but all feature a flat form of an apple centred in the middle of the page with carefully crafted optical illusions. The illusions were made possible by 北岡明佳 Akiyoshi Kitaoka, a professor and psychologist teaching at Ritsumeikan University and is known for his optical art. The poster also features serif typeface text to denote the information and artist of the exhibition and the logo for the gallery on the top right.

Miki’s design won the 18th Yusaku Kamekura Award (2016); this annual award honours outstanding graphic design selected by the Japan Graphic Designers Association.

Tokyo Metro Manner Poster 東京メトロマナーポスター2015

Wed, 23 Sep 2026 18:46:58 +0000

This poster belongs to メトロ文化財団 Metro Cultural Foundation’s long-running series of posters intended to remind and teach people about commuting etiquette. These posters date back to September 1974 and are renewed monthly in metro stations. This poster is the design made for April of 2015. This and the 2015 posters were adapted from original illustrations by studio crocodile, an animation and character design studio run by 文原聡 Satoshi Fumihara.

The 2015 posters have a comical yet theatrical style, which was referred to as マナー劇場 (Manner Theatre). The posters feature the main character ミテルちゃん (Miteru-chan), monitoring the passengers and reminding them of the dos and don’ts. In this poster specifically, ミテルちゃん is illustrated as a sheep wrangler, in motion, holding a lasso about to catch the three sheep blocking the doorway of the train. The scene informs passengers to move into the cart and not to block the doorway so that other passengers can board and get off the train. This poster, like the others in the 2015 series, employs a focused colour palette, split complementary of blue, yellow and orange, with a great deal of negative space, allowing viewers to focus on the scene and its message.

Yakuza 0 Japanese Cover Art / 龍が如く0 誓いの場所

Wed, 23 Sep 2026 18:46:26 +0000

This is the 2015 Japanese game package design for Yakuza 0. The software manual and packaging were designed by Yoshihiro Sakuta, Hiroki Osawa, Takashi Nishimura, and Masato Shimamura. Franchise staples Goro Majima and Kazuma Kiryu dominate the foreground of the cover, establishing them as the game's two protagonists. Behind them, supporting characters are layered and get progressively smaller, which helps to create a sense of depth for the cover. The large brushstroke “0” stands out against the mostly realistic character imagery.

Stela 7 from Yaxchilan

Tue, 22 Sep 2026 18:35:56 +0000

Stela 7 is a carved limestone monument from Yaxchilan, a Late Classic Maya city-state on the Usumacinta River located in present-day Chiapas, Mexico. Like other stelae at the site, it has a carved warrior scene on the side facing the river and a royal bloodletting scene on the side facing the temple. This pairing is identified as being characteristic of cosmological stelae groups. The monument broke apart at some point after being erected, and only the bottom three-quarters of it has been recovered and reassembled; the upper portion, which likely held the ruler's portrait and additional glyphic text, has never been found.

At the time of its creation, Mayan glyphic text was already being arranged in a grid of individual blocks, each read top to bottom and left to right, so that a viewer's eye moved through the inscription in a fixed, learnable sequence regardless of which stela they stood in front of. This recognizable “Z-pattern,” also called a corncob pattern when in reference to Maya design, is a known principle of legible and accessible design to this day. In that sense, Maya monumental design functioned not like a unique manuscript illustration and more like a standardized graphic system, with a set of conventions that could be learned, followed, and applied.

Long before systemization became a design-industry term, Maya carvers were already working with a repeatable grid, a fixed reading order, and a modular unit (the glyph block) that could be recombined to encode new content while remaining approachable to anyone familiar with the convention, the same underlying logic that modern grid systems and modular typesetting rely on. Treating this as a precedent complicates the idea that systematic, grid-based graphic design is a European or modernist invention, and raises the question of how that history can be properly credited to Indigenous American design traditions in the standard graphic design canon.

Mary Allen and the Percolators — “Aint Nothin New” LP

Tue, 22 Sep 2026 18:35:23 +0000

About this Object

"Ain't Nothin New" album on LP by Mary Allen And The Percolators. The front album cover features a three-color screen print on uncoated heavy purple paper stock. The back cover features a one-color screen print of a live band photo and hand-made typography for the track listing.

Front text reads:

Mary Allen Percolators
Ain't Nothin New

Back text reads:

Amazon
Whiplash
Grass
Dice
Tiger City USA
Swamp Think
Push Push Coast
Intergalactic
Be Brave

Label: Disgraceland Records

Released: 2014

About Underground Music Promotional Graphics

This work is an example of how anti-mainstream musicians (often referred as “underground” or “DIY”) depict their music through promotional graphics, uniting sound with visual expression. Designers of these pieces gain total freedom of expression by producing pieces like these in-house—often literally with collaborative making in their homes. Designers might choose production methods for ease of access, as a statement against mainstream production and capitalism, to eliminate digital screens and make by hand, or purely for artistic expression.

About the Minnesota Underground Music Archives (MUMA)

Housed in the Andersen Library Performing Arts Archive at the University of Minnesota, MUMA was formed in 2013 by local collectors Tim Carroll and Liseli Povlika. This community-driven archive is a unique assemblage of publications, publicity, photographs, recordings, and ephemera documenting Minnesota's independent, punk, and underground music culture from 1950 to the present. Its archivists are dedicated to the collecting and preserving of materials associated with the Minnesota music scene of the past, present, and future.

Tales of Phantasia Super Famicom Japanese Cover / テイルズオブファンタジア

Tue, 22 Sep 2026 18:34:36 +0000

This is the 1995 Japanese Super Famicom package art for Tales of Phantasia. The package was designed by Minako Matsuda, and the character designs were done by Kōsuke Fujishima. Tales of Phantasia is a JRPG which was developed by Wolf Team and published by Namco. This cover art shows the game's main character, Cress, riding a white horse alongside several of the game's companions who join him on his journey. The white horse's large size immediately draws the viewer's attention, along with the way it contrasts with the blue sky in the background. The diagonal arrangement of the characters also creates a sense of movement across the cover.

Dragon's Dogma : Dark Arisen PS3 Cover / ドラゴンズドグマ：ダークアリズン

Tue, 22 Sep 2026 18:33:03 +0000

This is the 2013 Japanese package design for Dragon's Dogma: Dark Arisen. This package was designed by Yumiko Uchida, with package artwork by Toshiaki Mori and Yasuyuki Takagi. The dragon dominates the upper portion of the cover, followed by the Dragon's Dogma logo in the center and the player characters at the bottom. This creates a visual hierarchy that reflects what the player will be fighting against in the game. The massive and powerful dragon towers over everything else, including the player characters. The blue and black color palette gives a sense of how dark and hopeless the current conflict feels, while the bright light shining on the player characters in the center creates a contrasting sense of hope. The typography of the logo is weathered, giving the feeling that this conflict has been going on for a very long time.

The 8th Sankei Kanze Noh

Tue, 22 Sep 2026 18:32:30 +0000

This poster was designed by Ikko Tanaka in 1961 for the 8th Sankei Kanze Noh performance. The poster consists mostly of colorful Japanese letters which are placed on the black background. The characters differ in sizes, colors, and orientation.

Ikko Tanaka was a graphic designer from Japan who used to combine traditional Japanese features with graphic design. His designs were mostly characterized by the use of simple shapes, typography, and bold colors. The poster under consideration was made to advertise the Noh performance.

In my opinion, this poster is very interesting as Tanaka has shown traditional Noh theater without illustrating any Noh actor or Noh stage. Moreover, the poster creates the feeling of movement due to the various sizes and orientations of characters. The black background of the poster provides it with the dramatic style. The colorful typography provides the poster with a modern visual effect.

Light and Vision

Tue, 22 Sep 2026 18:31:47 +0000

The poster in question was made by Kazumasa Nagai in 1969 as the design for the Japanese version of the Life Science Library series. In the poster, there are many white circles of various sizes on a bright red and yellow background. The circles represent the two types of photoreceptors in the human retina, cones and rods, which help us perceive light and color.

Kazumasa Nagai designed numerous posters for the Japanese versions of Life Science Library books. The Life Science Library itself was a set of books that were published by Time Life from 1963 to 1967 and that informed readers about various natural science subjects. Moreover, Nagai is one of the founders of Nippon Design Center, established in 1960.

In my opinion, this poster is very interesting because Nagai makes an abstract image of a scientific concept. At first, people will just notice a set of white circles on a bright background, however, these shapes have a meaning of seeing and perceiving the light and colors. Therefore, the poster is an example of conveying a scientific topic without an illustration.

Environmental Pollution

Tue, 22 Sep 2026 18:30:55 +0000

Environmental Pollution poster was created by Shigeo Fukuda in 1973. It belongs to the M+ collection and is kept in Hong Kong.

Shigeo Fukuda is a Japanese graphic designer, poster designer, and sculptor who is particularly famous for his visual illusions and simplicity of the images he used. Apart from that, he created some posters on different environmental and social themes.

The reason why I found this poster interesting is that Fukuda uses such a simple visual style to convey such an important theme. Often his works require viewers' careful look because the message is not always clear at first glance. The broken umbrella can be interpreted as a symbol of how environmental pollution can damage the things that are supposed to protect us.　Simplicity of the poster helps to remember the theme of environmental pollution.

Flower Hall

Tue, 22 Sep 2026 18:30:14 +0000

This poster was created by Kiyoshi Awazu for the Bungakuza Theater Group in 1970. Kiyoshi Awazu is a Japanese graphic designer and artist who was born in Tokyo in 1929.

The poster has a big abstract face that is located in the middle. The face painted in green and blue colors, and has yellow eyes and an open mouth. The red lines seems like a torii gate. The pink area looks like the sea, with a head coming out of it. If you look closely, you can see many small yellow and blue figures that look like they are drowning, and in the background, flames are burning.

I find this poster interesting as the big face grabs viewers' attention right away. The colors of the poster are very strong and the face is abstract and unrealistic. Instead, the designer creates a mask-like face using simplification. I also appreciate the combination of the image and the Japanese text that creates a theatrical effect.

Yamagiwa International Competition for Lighting Fixtures Exhibition

Tue, 22 Sep 2026 18:29:48 +0000

This poster was created by Yusaku Kamekura for the exhibition Yamagiwa International Competition for Lighting Fixtures in 1968. The principal image presented on the poster is the black silhouette of a light bulb placed in the center and surrounded by layers of different colors: purple, blue, green, and yellow.

Yusaku Kamekura is the well-known Japanese graphic designer, who was active during the postwar period. His work was inspired by the principles of Bauhaus and modernist design and he became one of the founders of the Nippon Design Center.

The reason why I find this poster attractive is that Kamekura manages to express the notion of light with such a simple image. I particularly appreciate the way colorful figures surrounding the black light bulb create the illusion of light spreading. Despite the simplicity of the design, its bright colors add energy and visual interest to the poster. I believe that the simplicity of the composition makes the poster comprehensible to perceive.

“The Killing of Sister George”

Tue, 22 Sep 2026 18:28:53 +0000

The Killing of Sister George is a film directed by Robert Aldrich in 1968 in Los Angeles, California, that's based on the 1964 play by Frank Marcus. The film portrays an aging butch soap-opera actress and her femme lover, who's trying to hang on to what she has left in her career as her predatory BBC executive threatens to fire her and steal her girlfriend. The poster has a very interesting dynamic , hand drawn illustrations and an interesting graphic that depicts a human face that can also be seen as a woman's body. The poster was designed by illustrator and artist Joseph Carof, who famously did other poster designs like the 007 gunbarrel logo for James Bond and posters for Westside Story. Joseph Carof was a mostly mainstream promotional art and design artist however, the 1960s queer movie marketing began using the bold, psychedelic and just anti-mainstream visual art, which was typical of the underground poster design during that time, this inspired Carof to create something unique, while also representing the power dynamics in the film. The color palette of pink and greens mirrored the culture of printshops that produced underground comix and popular protest poster designs. This also pushed the idea against MPAA’s (The Motion Picture Association) restrictive censorship for ‘X’ rated films at the time.

Hercules and The Captive Woman

Tue, 22 Sep 2026 18:28:14 +0000

Hercules and The Captive Woman is a film released in 1961 by director Vittorio Cottafavi and Mario Bava. The movie tells a story of Hercules heading to Atlantis with King Androcles of Thebes on a mission to Greece, on their journey Hercules is forced to save a kidnapped woman, Ismene, from a shapeshifting monster. The film was originally shot and directed in Italy, France under the name Hercules And The Conquest Of Atlantis, but was renamed and edited by Filmnation, an American production company, for the United States release. The movie was released during some of Hollywood’s biggest costume and monster phases. Lots of films coming out had practical effects and costume design, and the movie posters made sure to show it. The movie poster is very flashy with large typography with sentences that draw you in like, “Could she subdue this GIANT OF A MAN with her SORCERY", and the advertisement of new Technicolor Technirama Technology, which was due to the re-release in America that was updated to a 35mm windscreen film process, which reduced grain and provided a sharper definition. The design is hand drawn, a choice you could see in most films of the decade, hand drawn being more expressive and the fastest way to evoke emotion to audiences that represented the film. This was seen in a lot of B movie films at the time, due to the lower budget, anything promotional relied on a ‘wow’ factor that caught audiences attention, creating lots of interesting typography, hand lettered, dramatic multicolor palettes, and hand drawn and custom illustrations. This poster style can be seen throughout contemporary underground design, handmade textures, color mishaps and ink discoloring, and the large and loud fonts are reused and repurposed in design in examples of street fashion, retro graphics and even popular design culture now in the 20th century.

An Incomplete Taxonomy of Amazigh Symbols

Mon, 21 Sep 2026 14:49:59 +0000

This poster is the result of a year of collaboration and collective research with weavers from the Anou undertaken to document Amazigh weavers' stories and visual language.

The resulting taxonomy documents over 100 Amazigh weaving symbols and the meanings the weavers themselves recorded — among them the symbol of Tanit, the ancient North African goddess associated with the feminine divine and the symbol of snsla (the chain), linked diamonds that symbolize the strength and bonding of a tribe.

These symbols hold feminist narratives by definition — created, held, and transmitted by women — and yet they have long been appropriated and theorized out of context, stripped of the weavers' own voices and meanings. Positioning these symbols within design history reframes weaving as an authored visual system passed through practice and testimony.

The research culminated in the essay "Woven in Oral History" in the book Centered, edited by Kaleena Sales (Princeton Architectural Press, 2023), and the poster was exhibited in Reverberations: Lineages in Design History at the Ford Foundation Gallery in 2025. Functioning as a responsive, adaptive space open to experimentation, contemplation, and conversation, the gallery — through Reverberations — became an expansive educational space reimagining what counts as design history.

Bontan Rice Candy ボンタンアメ

Wed, 23 Sep 2026 12:20:41 +0000

The history of this design is extremely limited, but it was created by 大嵩双山 Ōtake Souzan for Seika Foods’ Bontan Ame ボンタンアメ around 1925, when the Japanese confectionery was first introduced to Japan.

Ōtake was a Japanese Western-style painter and a corporate designer, mainly known for the packaging design he made for Seika Foods.

Ōtake's design features an illustration of bontan, the Japanese pomelo used in the candy, and a trademark logo is placed on the right. Text denoting the product is placed on the left. The text is written in tategaki (vertically) and uses a mix of a heavily stylised, angular font for the product name and round gothic for the product’s unique selling point (南国特產, tropical speciality) and trademark information.