Text as Image in Japanese Advertising Typography Design

Abstract

Introduction Advertising as a functional communication system, with a clear-cut goal of capturing the consumer’s attention and encouraging the purchase of the advertised product, typically consists of a visual image and a slogan. In analyzing the play of word and image in contemporary advertisements, this study looks to the conceptual changes that occurred in the relations between these two semiotic fields from the modern to the postmodern era, during which the mutuality and interaction between the two systems were modified completely. Within the realm of this extensive subject, this article attends to one particular element: the design of Japanese calligraphy and typography that, as argued by Gennifer Weisenfeld, is a visual mode of communication that functions on an aesthetic metalevel.1 Rather than presenting a survey of Japanese typographic design history, my intent instead is to show how the text itself becomes a visual image in contemporary Japanese advertising and how Japanese contemporary designers use calligraphy and fonts to create a meta-level visual communication mode.