Kouga Hirano’s 100 Works

So powerful, and yet so delicate. Kouga Hirano’s unique hand-drawn letters have highlighted book covers, making him a prominent figure in the publishing industry for decades. He has undertaken numerous covers – indeed, 7000 books. Even today, Hirano continues to work daily on his past projects of book covers, or posters and flyers for theaters and concerts, touching and retouching them and printing them on washi (Japanese bamboo paper), with dedication akin to copying Buddhist sutras by hand. This e-book is a collection of such works. Also featured is his outlook on letter designing, cited from past articles, and interview transcripts. All art works introduced in this e-book can be purchased.

[Table of Contents]
1 Designing Covers and Publishing Books.

2 The Landscape Beyond Kanji

3 Combination of kanji, hiragana, and katakana: A costume

4 “Drawing” letters and characters

5 A style for illustration, and a style for letters

6 What the theater taught me

7 Designs, life, and opinions

8 Between typeface and “drawn” words