Life Rhapsody - About life, about nature, about an artist

This is an archive I designed for NGV this semester about Kazumasa Nagai's posters.

Project Description

An archive is an accumulation of historical records in any media, however, along with the time the media has been changed currently not just in physical facilities, but a growing number of digital carriers, such as applications or websites. Therefore, I used two different methods to present Kazumasa Nagai’s – who is a master of Japanese graphic design and an acclaimed artist – artworks, especially the political posters about ‘life’, by an art package included one booklet, one Q&A flyer, and a bookmark with QR code.

All posters are from NGV collection and my personal collection. I also connected critical design and human centred design thinking to express Nagai’s ideology. For example, although Nagai created many vivid creatures in his posters, he does not want to express the viewpoint that animals are the vulnerable groups, on the contrary, he wants to tell all audiences that these flora and fauna resisted humanization or contamination via their own rules of living. Thus, I selected some typical posters, which all creatures looked very ‘wild’ and offensive, as well as their movements or expressions are like a yell of existence, to reflect that all life is equal, animals also have their own emotions. Nagai’s life work is exploring the relationship between life and humans. Since I was a student studied environmental science about six years, I can understand his ideology easier than others. I just try to express a viewpoint that the world belongs to us all living, not just belong to us humans via this archive. About human centred design, I used some plain colours to stand out the vitality of life, meanwhile, avoid distracting audiences’ attention by some unnecessary ‘decoration’. And all his posters presented in the booklet were arranged in line with creative time, since different time Nagai’s artworks had different styles.

Besides the booklet for Nagai’s posters, there was a bookmark to achieve making archive ‘digital’. Just from my point of view, current archive should be shared anywhere and anytime, audiences can enjoy master’s art no matter where they living, especially in this COVID-19 period. The archive is not the unreachable records, in contrast, it is the popular media with artistic charm or critical thinking. Every bookmark had a QR code, audiences can scan this code via their electronic equipment to browse relevant posters’ series. For example, you can scan the ‘Turtle’ bookmark to check ‘Japan’ poster series created by Kazumasa Nagai in 1987 and 1988. Actually, every archive package just has one bookmark. If audiences wanted to collect all bookmarks, they have to purchase more packages. To some extent, it is a good promotion strategy to enhance commercial performance.

Moreover, one of the main aims of this archive is to attract more and more people to pay attention to the Asian design or discuss the balance between Eastern and Western culture. This is also main reason why I select Nagai’s work, since his work is more influential than others, and can represent Asian culture. I designed a Q&A flyer about Nagai to help audiences easier to understand his thinking. Actually, from this interview, we can deeper understand how do we get inspiration from our life, and how do we achieve our life objectives. This interview is very enlightening for everyone studied graphic design.

Last, in this project, I also created some illustrations by myself extracted from Nagai’s posters, like the deer and giraffe illustration. At same time, I also write some introductions from my understanding to explain the picture language. To sum up, this design is not just an archive to record Nagai’s work, but a real story about life, about nature, and about an artist.

Concept

What Kazumasa Nagai is a master of Japanese graphic design and an acclaimed graphic artist.His life work is exploring the relationship between life and nature. No matter what styles, abstractionism or realism, all his work expressed the vitality of life.

Why

I was a student studied environmental science about six years. I understand the significance of protecting our earth. Nagai’s works not only represented some interesting flora and fauna, but the attitude about how do we face our world. I want to express an idea that “The world belongs to us all living, not just belong to us humans”.

How

Combined Eastern and Western culture to face all audiences. Used plain colours contrasted with vivid posters. Designed a booklet to present some creatures’ posters with relevant introduction based on the timeline. Created the QR code on the bookmark to achieve archiving these artworks anywhere. And a flyer had Q&A about Nagai to give audiences an insight into this Japanese master.

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