Featuring Japanese festival firework by Valerie Bodnar
Japanese art and design are widely used and celebrated all around the world. From anime and origami to lolita fashion and minimalist interior designs, even in a small way, Japanese culture has become a part of our everyday lives.
Today, Japanese graphic design can be seen integrated into logos, advertisements, digital artworks, and even Japanese fonts. Their unique styles and motifs make them valuable to brands and graphic designers alike. Here are some Japanese graphic designs and inspiration you can use for your brand.
Characteristics of Japanese Design
Japan’s distinct history and culture paved the way for the development of Japanese design as a whole other genre in itself. Let’s take a look at some design elements that characterize Japanese design:
Geometric Shapes
From 1955 to 1961, Japan experienced a time called the “Japanese economic miracle” or the Golden ’60s. This was when the country’s economy grew quickly. Many new ideas came from this time, including Japanese design that mixes European design concepts with Japanese symbols. This style is often very geometric.
In Japanese culture, shapes often represent abstract ideas. For example, circles, squares, and rectangles are often used in traditional and modern art. A good example is the work of renowned Japanese graphic designer Ikko Tanaka:
Minimalist Design
Minimalist Japanese designs involve the use of simple shapes, brush strokes, a monochromatic color palette and plenty of negative space. This can be observed in different print and online materials; packaging and posters from different Japanese brands, for example. Here’s a template to help you envision what your product will look like with a minimalist Japanese design for the packaging:
Kawaii Design
Kawaii, also known as “cute culture” is probably the most distinguished form of Japanese pop culture. Its colorful designs, cute patterns, and cartoon animals or characters are just some elements that really define the kawaii aesthetic. You’ll notice how common it is for Japanese products to have cute designs printed on them like the ones below, and we have the kawaii culture to thank for that.
Japanese Typography
The Japanese language is one of the most intricate and complex languages in the world. It has three alphabets – hiragana, katakana, and kanji that combined have over 2000 characters – this is why writing in Japanese can be considered an art. Creating custom typography based on select Japanese characters is an essential quality of Japanese design.
Floral Patterns
Floral patterns are traditional Japanese motifs. From Japanese ancient art to modern graphic design, flowers are a consistent element in Japanese art and design. Like shapes, flowers symbolize spiritual and emotional meanings in Japanese culture, which is no wonder why Japanese floral patterns have a calming vibe.
Japanese Design Styles To Get Inspiration From
Incorporating Japanese style into your branding design requires a lot of visualization and consideration. But not to worry, here are some Japanese designs to help make it easier for you:
Traditional Japanese Designs
In Japan, traditional patterns are woven into kimonos, hand towels and other Japanese items. Examples of these patterns are the hemp leaves (asanoha), seven treasures (shippÅ), blue ocean waves (seigaiha), tortoiseshell (kikkÅ), winding plant (karakusa) and shark skin (same komon).
Image Source: Nippon.com
To identify the other patterns, take a look at the background templates below. Here you have the seven treasures (upper middle), hemp leaves (upper right end) and blue ocean waves (second one on the lower left):
Meanwhile, here we have the tortoiseshell (upper left end) and winding plant patterns (lower left end):
The versatility and timelessness of these traditional Japanese patterns can enable you to easily repurpose them for your design.
Modern Japanese Designs
Kintsugi is the ancient art of repairing broken pottery by putting pieces back together using gold. The philosophy behind it is embracing your flaws and imperfections and treating them as part of your history by making them visible rather than disguising them.
Image Source: Pinterest
In this graphics pack by Polli Deeva, Kintsugi is given a modern take using minimalist shapes and curved lines and clean geometric patterns.
On the other hand, these modern Japanese designs from Anna Komeleva include botanical vector elements, handmade textures, watercolor illustrations, and digital art with an elegant aesthetic.
Japanese Art Designs
Since its early days, nature – more specifically, mountains – have been a common subject in Japanese art. With more than half of the population practicing Shinto, the Japanese are very spiritual and hold many supernatural beliefs. One of them is the belief that images of nature and landscapes act as a portrait of the sacred world in which the kami, or deities, exist. Here is a landscape painting of Mt. Penglai by Taikan Yokoyama, a very important figure in Japanese art history.
Image Source: Google Arts & Culture
Until today, nature continues to be the favorite muse of Japanese artists. Here are some examples of Japanese-inspired graphic art with landscapes and mountains that you can use for your design:
Taikan Yokoyama is also one of the creators of nihonga, a Japanese painting technique centered around traditional Japanese artistic conventions. This elegant art style captures Japan’s national heritage in paintings depicting scenes from Japanese culture and history. It also uses subjects like birds and flowers (kacho-ga) and beautiful women (bijin-ga).
Image Source: Google Arts & Culture
Check out these nihonga-inspired art designs:
Japanese Geometric Patterns
Like floral patterns, geometric patterns are the most distinguishable form of Japanese design. Here are some Japanese geometric patterns that you can include in your design:
The Famous Japan-Inspired Wave Design
You know that big ocean wave you often see printed on shirts, wallets, tote bags and other fast fashion merchandise? That iconic design is actually based on a woodblock print by the legendary Hokusai.
Image Source: Google Arts & Culture
This very simple yet powerful piece of art spawned all of the similar designs we see today. Maybe you can join the bandwagon and try these “Great Wave”-inspired designs for your brand:
Japanese Design Ideas You Can Use for Your Brand
Give your brand a unique and refreshing look with these Japanese designs for your logo, poster, or website design:
Japan-Inspired Logo Design Ideas
If you’re a Japanese restaurant owner, you can use Japanese calligraphy or typography in your logo, like this logo template:
You can also opt for a minimalist Japanese logo and combine it with Japanese patterns, like this one:
Using geometric shapes will help you achieve a Japanese-inspired logo as well. Take this logo template for example:
Japan-Inspired Website Design Ideas
This Japanese website template by Kreativ Space uses a black-and-white palette and the blue ocean waves traditional pattern for a minimalist design:
While this one from lelevien displays a graphic artwork based on Japanese scenery.
Japanese Graphic Design Poster Ideas
Based on these templates, you can easily apply the idea of Nihonga and create a design using birds and floral patterns:
Using inspiration from Japanese art, feel free to apply Japanese culture and natural elements for your design, like in this template:
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