社団法人 日本グラフィックデザイナー協会 JAGDA

Comment from Designer

March 11, 2011: Disaster at Fukushima nuclear plant!
A few days later, I was asked to design this year’s Hiroshima Appeals poster. Soon my mind was set on going to Hiroshima. It was my third visit to Hiroshima Peace Memorial (Atomic Bomb Dome), but this time, I stood before the building with a new sense of tension. As I took photographs of the site, the image overlapped that of the blasted reactor building of Fukushima daiichi nuclear power plant. It was then and there that the basic direction of the poster design was solidified. Ongoing discussions on nuclear power and a sense of crisis in Japan, I believe, led me to that direction. Choosing the memorial as the subject of the poster is an easy answer that may result in banality. But I dared to take up the challenge. My young granddaughter saw me tackling with the piece of work and exclaimed, “That’s the Hiroshima Peace Memorial!” I continued working on it thinking, “Now, what message can I convey through my expression?”

Hiroshima Appeals Poster Campaign

In 1983, the Japan Graphic Designers Association Inc. (JAGDA) and the Hiroshima International Cultural Foundation announced their collaboration on a project focusing on the theme “Hiroshima’s Spirit” and launched a poster campaign with the goal of promoting peace at home and abroad. The first poster, entitled “Burning Butterflies”, was created by Yusaku Kamekura, the president of JAGDA at the time. Designers affiliated with JAGDA produce one poster each year.
The posters are sold to the general public and exhibited in a nationwide tour called the “Peace Poster Exhibition”. Posters in the series have engaged citizens around the world, displayed in the Atomic Bomb Exhibition preceding to the historic 1985 Geneva Summit, and the exhibition entitled “Hiroshima: A Message for Peace among People” held in Barcelona and Valencia in Spain, and Aosta in Italy in 1997. The 2008 poster was sent to several member cities whose mayors are members of the international group Mayors for Peace. The “Hiroshima Appeals” project, conducted annually from 1983 till 1991, was reinstated in 2005 to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the end of World War II.

Designers: 1983 Yusaku Kamekura; 1984 Kiyoshi Awazu; 1985 Shigeo Fukuda; 1986 Yoshio Hayakawa; 1987 Kazumasa Nagai; 1988 Ikko Tanaka; 1989 Mitsuo Katsui; 2005 Masayoshi Nakajo; 2006 Koichi Sato; 2007 Shin Matsunaga; 2008 Masuteru Aoba; 2009 Katsumi Asaba; 2010 Keisuke Nagatomo; 2011 Susumu Endo; 2012 Yukimasa Okumura; 2013 Kaoru Kasai; 2014 Tsuguya Inoue; 2015 Taku Satoh; 2016 Takahisa Kamijyo; 2017 Kenya Hara; 2018 Kazunari Hattori; 2019 Katsuhiko Shibuya