From Tuesday 3 March to Sunday 28 June 2026, the exhibition “Nakajo Sings, Nakajo Dances – Rhythms of letters, pictures and Shiseido” will be held at the Shiseido Gallery.
Masayoshi Nakajo (1933–2021) was one of Japan’s foremost graphic designers, and five years after his passing, we present a meticulously curated selection of Nakajo’s work from a lifetime’s journey alongside Shiseido, in an exhibition ranging from the company’s cultural magazine Hanatsubaki, to posters and packaging for the Shiseido Parlour, and priceless original drawings on display here for the first time.
In addition to his extensive design and art direction efforts for Shiseido, Masayoshi Nakajo was also known for his logos, notably those of the Matsuya Ginza department store (1978) and Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo (1995). Nakajo’s unique worldview, born out of a consistently astute understanding of the contemporary moment, and a quirky avant-garde spirit, gives him a persistent prominence in the graphic design industry even today, both at home and abroad.
In particular, as computer-aided design using a grid system took hold from the 2000s, Nakajo’s oeuvre, with its freestyle composition and hand-drawing, began to attract renewed attention and exert substantial influence on a younger generation of graphic designers.
Unpacking Nakajo’s design afresh, it is possible to discern not only, of course, his superlative capabilities in both textual and pictorial elements, but in the editorial design seen in Hanatsubaki, his longest-running Shiseido commission, the true value of resonance between the two. Japanese characters, and alphabet letters, are skillfully crafted, or alternatively, assembled; illustrations drawn by hand, or images created through photography. When all brought together by Masayoshi Nakajo, text breaks into rhythmical song; graphics into dance. Nakajo once said he always “chooses the design most likely to sing,” and some also ascribed to that design a distinctive “dancing” quality.
In Nakajo’s work one may also identify a contemporary version of the particular design sensibility of Japanese art, in which written characters are treated as forms, and merged seamlessly with pictorial elements; and of a Japanese aesthetic passed down the centuries in waka poetry, hyakunin isshu cards, the Rinpa school of painting, and ukiyo-e prints, to cite just a few examples.
“Nakajo Sings, Nakajo Dances – Rhythms of letters, pictures and Shiseido” is an attempt to capture, in even small part, the essence of Nakajo’s design, through several of the projects he undertook alongside Shiseido; projects with one foot firmly in these features of Japanese art. Nakajo’s work is avant-garde, yet timeless, thanks to his penchant for plucking from history specimens of universal beauty, and expressing that allure in new ways. A growing diversity in values and aesthetics makes now the perfect moment to engage with the work of Masayoshi Nakajo, and explore the possibilities for beauty in this new age.
