Lilycolor
Date
Credits
- Kazumasa Nagai 38 Printmaker
Format
- Poster 2371
Clients
Media
- paper 2062
Techniques
Dimensions
Locations Made
- Japan 560
- Tokyo 81
- Tokyo Prefecture 77
This poster was created as an advert, or corporate piece for Kawakichi Co., Ltd. (川吉紙店), a Japanese interior design and wallpaper company. The top shows a geometric dome with yellow squares, with the bottom showing a sunset over mountains. The design is meant to reflect the fusion of nature and technology by using a combination of photographic realism and computer-like geometry. The bottom has the brand name “Lilycolor” with the typeface unidentified, but most likely modern sans-serif type.
This poster shows how Japanese designers in the 1970s were pushing the boundaries of what advertising could be. Instead of focusing on selling something directly, Kazumasa Nagai turned a company ad into a work of art. His work combined modernist ideas like simplicity, clean shapes, and balance with a uniquely Japanese sense of calm and nature-inspired design. This poster also marks a period when Japanese design was gaining international respect for both its creativity and precision. The poster proves that even a corporate advertisement can become a piece of influential art, influencing later generations of designers around the world to see graphic design as not just as communication.