T YPOGRAPHY

Takenobu Igarashi Pushed the

Parameters of Typography with His
Hand-drawn 3D Letterforms
He was one of the first designers to
explore dimensional type, well before the
widespread use of computers
Words by Published on
Angela Riechers October 14th, 2020
r, March 1988 (detail)

Japanese-born educator and designer Takenobu Igarashi’s 20-

year creative career brought an architectural understanding of
form and space to the world of typography, paving the way for a
new field of dimensional type from the mid-1970s to today. His
explorations in 3D typography started as axonometric drawings,
which he produced by hand using architecture drafting tools. By
 the ’80s, these drawings had morphed into sculptures rendered
in complex interlocking forms of folded paper, metal, concrete,
and wood, carving up space in pure expressions of shape and
volume. The rich surfaces practically beg viewers to run their
hands over them.

Igarashi drawing a plan with a drafter at his studio in Aoyama, Tokyo, 1980
A new book, Takenobu Igarashi A-Z, written by Sakura
Nomiyama and edited by Haruki Mori, gives the first major
retrospective of his work, complete with process photos, hand-
drawn sketches, sculptures, posters, and numerous interviews
with the designer. What emerges from all of that material is a
portrait of a designer who refused to consider graphic design
within its established limits, and instead pushed the discipline’s
parameters into entirely new territory. Igarashi’s deep
understanding of form allowed him to consider type as
architecture, not just a thin layer of ink on a page. He was one of
the first 20th century designers to explore more complex
spatial roles for typography, even when that type was still part of
a 2D printed image. He became a master of 3D type well before
computers became ubiquitous tools in the design industry.

The modular 3D characters Igarashi developed show the

influence of early Bauhaus masters, such as Herbert Bayer and
Josef Albers, and also looked to the future, paving the way for
the explosion of dimensional type that happened throughout the
1970s. During this era, new technologies for phototypesetting
and computer-based type systems started to take over all types
of publishing, from newspapers and magazines to advertising
and signage. Designers began to play with new possibilities in
type, now that they were no longer limited to cast metal fonts.
Suddenly the world was awash in quirky, non-traditional
typefaces that did not follow any established tradition. Instead,
they hewed only to the whims of their designers, including
Seymour Chwast and Milton Glaser, whose typefaces Blimp and
Hologram, respectively, were both published in 1970.

Meanwhile, Igarashi’s prolific career was taking off. He taught

and founded design programs at Chiba University and Tama Art
University in Japan, and the University of California, Los
 Angeles, and worked for various American and Japanese clients
on their corporate design. He employed his hand drawn 3D type
in vibrant and innovative posters for UCLA, TCP Corp Jazz
Festival, and Zen Environmental Design. In the 1980s, Igarashi
began to collaborate with other influential graphic designers,
including Massimo Vignelli and Alan Fletcher, on OUN, a project
focused on design education, publications, and new product
development, and with Pentagram on posters advertising the
newly-launched Polaroid Impulse camera in 1988.

In 1984, Igarashi took out a five-year loan to buy three

Macintosh computers. He experimented with effects achievable
only with this new design tool, adding to his practice of manual,
hand-drawn design with its focus on physical construction and
process, materials, and methods.

Poster, Type Directors Club, Australia, 1987 05 Poster, Kobe Creative Forum ‘93 (detail)

In the same decade, his contemporary in the fine arts world

Robert Indiana (creator of Philadelphia’s L-O-V-E sculpture) and
fellow graphic designer Ivan Chermayeff (whose giant red
number 9 stands outside of New York City’s Solow building on
West 57th Street) were both working with large-scale
dimensional letterform sculptures whose main visual appeal is
their brightly colored, glossy surfaces. Igarashi’s sculptural
letters are a different breed entirely: They speak to the complex
interplay of void and form first, while maintaining a healthy
respect for surface qualities as well. During this time, the
designer also advanced into the field of product design,
creating flatware and a wildly popular calendar featuring 3D
numerals for the Museum of Modern Art in New York. It
included 622 individually-designed numerals needed to
represent the 365 days of the year—meaning that he designed
4,536 variations of axonometric three-dimensional numerals,
based on 84 different ideas. The calendar sold out eight years
in a row.

His first type sculptural series began in 1981 with an aluminum

alphabet inspired by old radio parts and variable capacitors, as
part of a personal design exploration. A side-by-side
comparison of his drawing (graphite on tracing paper) for a
capital D next to the finished letterform is like seeing geometry
come to life, as if a problem from your 10th-grade math book
suddenly sat up and decided to assemble itself into an imposing
sculptural object. Igarashi’s ability to imagine and fabricate
precise letters using an analog skill set is all the more
remarkable against the backdrop of today’s 3D type and motion
graphics, where software does much of that work for a designer.
Aluminum Alphabet E, 1983 07 Aluminum Alphabet D, 1983

Contemporary dimensional type takes on many forms, from

real-world objects to variable 3D effects. All owe a debt to
Igarashi. Michael Prisco and Helen Sywalski’s project Type
High: Experiments in Dimensional Design and Typography, on
exhibit in 2017 at the Cooper Union in New York, falls firmly in
the realm of sculpture. Type High showcased four-foot-tall
letters A, B, and C fabricated from metal and plywood that
visitors could walk through, around, and even into. Also in the
entirely real camp is Spanish Western, a set of letterforms
milled in wood. Designed by Quique Rodriguez, creative director
of Spanish design studio Dosdecadatres, the letters were
dramatically lit and filmed as opening credits for a public TV
documentary. Dosdecadatres has also made some pretty
impressive dimensional type from functional laboratory
glassware.

SVG technology makes contemporary digital fonts such as Bixa

possible, updating 19th century woodblock typefaces whose eye-
catching 3D chromatic effects were created for use in
advertising. Whoa, designed by Travis Kochel, features an
advanced variable 3D effect that makes other commercially-
available static 3D fonts look like kid stuff.

By reimagining type (the flattest of flat design) as objects that

took up volume and appeared to have mass, Igarashi inspired
the design world to envision typography in a brand-new
incarnation, and brought a centuries-old tradition into the
future. In 1994, he shuttered his design practice and moved to
Los Angeles to become a sculptor. Ten years later he returned to
Japan where he still lives and works, producing sculptures and
graphic artworks for public spaces nationwide. Ongoing design
experiments in type and dimensionality demonstrate that as
typography continues to advance further into virtual and spatial
realms, designers still have much to learn from the
groundbreaking work of Takenobu Igarashi.

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