The Study Of Kenya Hara’s Design Style And Design Philosophy

The history of Japan’s modern graphic design can be recognized as a history of legendary. It developsalong with the fast revival of Japan’s economy after the World War II. The salutatory development modelwith Japanese full-bodied legendary has always been a heated topic of international graphic design, whichdeveloped from the traditional graphic design originally to the modern fashion one, especially the perfectcombination of traditional and modern elements in the works of Japan’s modern graphic design. It hasbecome one of the most influential leading powers in modern international graphic design. While as therepresentative master of Japanese graphic design, Kenya Hara, his design style and design philosophyrepresent the result of graphic design to a large extent, and also, as an international modern and Mesozoicgraphic design master, representative of Japanese design center, a professor of Musashino Art University,art director of MUJI, Kenya Hara has devoted himself into modern graphic design, toped the career ofmodern graphic design and made himself special with his special perspective since1982. So we can havea brand-new understand by talking about Kenya Hara’s modern graphic design, which means a lot for thefurther development of our country’s modern graphic design.By research method, this thesis will use documentation retrieval, illustration, comparative anaysis,summarize and so on, by which will expound Kenya Hara’s Design Style and Design Philosophy in detailand finally get its own conclusion. He pursues a simple and natural design style in the field of graphicdesign, about his design philosophy, he integrates his special understand of “five senses”, expound ofhumanization, his pursue after Zen’s real meaning, recreation of arts into his art creation. Meanwhile, hepays more attention to traditional cultural custom, the development of design experience and moderndesign and people’s concept of life in the process of his art creation. He expresses his ethereal art spirit bythe means of signs and symbols, so, Kenya Hara’s art design is the process of digging profound philosophymeaning and the meaning of life from easy and simple life.By the structure of this thesis, it is divided into five chapters. Chapter Ⅰstates the current researchbackground, situation, objective and meaning of modern graphic design, and also the research content andmethods. Chapter Ⅱ talks about the lifetime and the development and features of Japanese graphic design with the help of information from the Internet, CNKI, books from library, the main research method isliterature retrieval. And then summarize the graphic design features of different times in detail. Chapter IIImainly uses illustration to talk about briefly the organization and mutual relations of Kenya Hara’s designstyles and design philosophies, part two exampled with his representative works such as the design of thebrochure of1998Tokyo Olympic Games, to talk about his pursue of “five senses” in his works; part threeuses the SIGNGRAPHICS of Umea hospital to talk about his pursue of humanization and chapter four andfive talks about Zen’s real meaning in the design of MUJI and his special features in his works respectively.His graphic arts design style, head and extremities, charity, comfort, brief and plain, which pays attention tohumanity and the nature of design and leading the trend of modern consumption, can all be found in thischapter. While in Chapter IV, with the comparative analysis method, it compares Kan Tai-keung and ShaoHua Chen with Kenya Hara to summarize the common points of them, that’s the feature of combiningnationalism and internationalism. The last chapter is a conclusion of this thesis, which profound thecontents, findings and values of this thesis.All in all, this thesis aims at talking about the design styles and design philosophies and their influenceon modern graphic design of Japanese Mesozoic graphic design master Kenya Hara, which is based on thegreat development of Japanese modern graphic design. As a recent international famous graphic designmaster, Kenya Hara has been devoting all his life to the graphic design career since the beginning of it. Inhis mind, the modern graphic design is the true meaning and the final pursuit of his life, his final goal oflife can be recognized as “art for art’s sake”. The true love for life and real art can be found from his works,besides, so can the charm of modern graphic design, the extensive and profound traditional Japaneseculture and the dense ethnic flavor of Yamato of Japan. Based on traditional graphic design, his moderngraphic design adheres to simple and plain design styles, concise and natural design philosophies. He hasalways been impacting the Japanese nationals with mild mentality and clear design language. Besides, he isgood at creating modern life meaning from the traditional culture of Japan. As a Japanese Mesozoicinternational famous graphic designer, Kenya Hara roots his design philosophy and design style in hisspecial view of modern life and gets his sole inspiration from his special understanding of daily life.Besides, he mixes the experience of the five sense organs together with the traditional Japanese Zen spiritinto the modern graphic design elements, and with the fast development of modern economy, his adds scientific ecological consuming desires, which can lead the consumers to return to nature, into his works,which combines traditional cultural customs, designing experience, modern development of designing andpeople’s daily life together, with the means of signs and symbols to express his“out of thin air”designingconcept. so it can be said that he creates his designing concept from the simple life. By analyzing some ofKenya Hara’s works, this thesis exampled with his famous modern graphic designing to demonstrate hismodern graphic designing philosophy and to stimulate the readers further think about it in the progress ofanalysis. All of this have great meaning for both our country and the whole world.