Hideyuki Oka

Could there be a more unlikely subject for an amazingly successful book than traditonal Japanese packaging? And yet, when Hideyuki Oka's How to Wrap Five Eggs appeared in 1967, the almost unanimous reaction might be summed up as: 'Utterly delightful!' And the exclamation is even truer of the present namesake of that earlier book: it not only retains the favorite photographs but adds much new material based upon the author's continuing research.

What is the explanation for the undiminishing interest in Mr. Oka's books? The eminent American designer George Nelson suggested one answer when he wrote as follows in his foreword to the earlier book: 'We have come a long, long way from the kind of thing so beautifully presented in this book. To suit the needs of super mass production, the traditional natural materials are to obstreperous...and one by one we have relplaced them with the docile, predictable synthetics...What we have gained from these (new) materials and wonderfully complicated processes to make up for the general pollution, rush, crowding, noise, sickness, and slickness is a subject for other forums. But what we have lost for sure is what this book is all about: a once-common sense of fitness in the relationships between hand, material, use, and shape, and above all, a sense of delight in the look and feel of very ordinary, humble things. This book is thus...a totally unexpected monument to a culture, a way of life, a universal sensibility carried through all objects down to the smallest, most inconsequential, and ephemeral things.'

Another quesion, implicit throughout, the book, has been put thus by Mr. Oka: 'If the craftsmen and 'designers' of old Japan could create beauty with their materials, are we today to accept defeat when faced with ours?'

But beyond all questions and words and theories there always remains the sheer visual appeal of he book's 244 photographs in matte gravure and full color. The book is indeed a feast for the eyes.

Hideyuki Oka is one of Japan's leading graphic designers. Still active at the age of seventy, he is an officer or charter member of several influential design associations, and somehow finds time to do much writing and to pursue his deep interest in traditional Japanese packaging.

Contents

Introduction, by Hideyuki Oka
Plates (photography by Michikazu Sakai
Commentaries on the plates, by Hideyuki Okapi… (more)