Shigeo Fukuda (福田繁雄)

1. What it is — poster for the Warsaw competition marking the 30th anniversary of the war's end, 1975, grand prix (Wikipedia). UMMA holds a 1976 reproduction: screenprint, 102.9 × 73 cm, gift of DNP. A client in the sense of a commissioner doesn't exist — work made for a competition.
2. Composition — the whole format is one flat ochre-yellow plane. Two black objects on the same diagonal (≈ 35° from vertical, tilted left): a cannon barrel enters from the lower left corner (muzzle at ≈ 46% w, 49% h), a shell floats upper right (centre of mass ≈ 72% w, 20% h) and returns toward the barrel — its tip turned toward the muzzle. The title VICTORY 1945 upper left (≈ 5–47% w, 4–8% h), white. The eye enters on the title, slides along the diagonal to the shell, then down it into the barrel — and stops there because the direction doesn't add up. The empty space lower right (≈ 40% of the format) is deliberate: the shell has nowhere else to go.
3. Colour — three colours: ochre-yellow ground, black silhouette, white word. On the black objects one thin yellow glint (edge of the barrel, ring of the shell) — not a fourth colour, it's the ground showing through a break in the black. Zero tone, zero shadow; the shine is a line. Yellow was chosen so the black could be as hard as possible (maximum brightness contrast without a white ground) and so the poster, seen from five metres, would read as one yellow rectangle with two black blots.
4. Typography — condensed grotesque, capitals, white, one line; a class, not a specific typeface (nothing on Fonts In Use). It sits like an inscription on the object, not as a title above the image: same 0° angle, same whiteness as the glint. Nothing else on the format.
5. Message — victory is the bullet that returns to the one who fired it. Three seconds to recognise the cannon and the shell; in the fifth second the direction becomes clear. At five metres you see yellow with two black blots — cannon and bullet; the message only reads at three metres, but even at five it reads as "war". The cover-the-text test passes — the image says everything; the title only dates it.
6. Why exactly this way — a competition, a single sheet, an international audience with no shared language: the word must be superfluous. The constraint of screenprinting (flat colours) and the constraint of the jury (hundreds of sheets, three seconds per sheet) give the same solution: one operation on one known image — reverse the direction. Fukuda doesn't draw war, he draws a ballistic error.
7. What would kill it — turning the shell "correctly" (away from the barrel): it remains an artillery poster. Or adding a second shell: "impossible" becomes "a lot" and the argument disappears. Or a shadow under the barrel — the object gets a ground, and loses the diagram.

Principles: One image, one word One operation per piece (reverse the direction) Object turned against its own function Impossible object as argument Flat colour reads at distance To verify against the image: the exact angle of the diagonal and whether the glint is the yellow ground or a separate colour (1976 screenprint — probably a break in the black). The 1975 original has not been verified against the 1976 reproduction (UMMA itself says "Reproduction"). Measurement (from screenshot): barrel muzzle (46, 49)%; shell centre of mass (72, 20)%; title (5–47, 4–8)%; angle ≈ 35°.

1. What it is — poster for his own exhibition in the gallery on the 5th floor of the Keio department store, Tokyo, 23–28 May 1975 (inscription; UMMA). Screenprint, 102.9 × 73 cm (UMMA; PGDA states offset, 103 × 72 — not verified against the image). Same year as Victory.
2. Composition — the format is divided into six vertical "columns": six black women's legs with high heels hang FROM ABOVE (heel at ≈ 12% h), and the white gaps between them are men's legs in trousers with shoes standing FROM BELOW (shoe at ≈ 88% h). There's nothing else apart from one line of small text along the bottom edge (≈ 95% h): name, date, place. The eye first reads the black legs (figure), then the white "breaks" into men's — and from then on it can no longer see just one. The rhythm is strict: six modules, equal step, full height.
3. Colour — black on white, nothing else; and that's not economy but a condition: the moment one side gained colour, it would become the figure and the other the ground, and the trick would die. Equal "weight" of black and white (≈ 50/50 of the area) keeps both readings alive.
4. Typography — one line of small capitals, grotesque (PGDA writes Helvetica without a source — class Helvetica). Deliberately illegible from a distance: the poster must first be an image, only at half a metre a notice. The text sits below the shoes like ground.
5. Message — a poster for the exhibition of a man who makes tricks is itself a trick. No slogan; the message is the experience of "I see one / I see the other". From five metres: black-and-white stripes, op-art; from two metres: women's legs; from one: men's too. Three distances, three contents.
6. Why exactly this way — department store, passers-by, zero budget for text: the poster must stop the step. The constraint he set himself is stronger than any client's: both readings must be COMPLETE (heel AND shoe, with no "leftover" in either). That's what separates this poster from Rubin's vase: there's no neutral zone.
7. What would kill it — one module shifted (unequal step) or one leg in a different pose: the white stops being a leg and reverts to a gap. Or a grey ground: the figure gains priority and the ground dies.

Principles: Both readings fully resolved White space as shape One primitive for everything (one leg shape, six times) Two reading distances Black and white before colour One operation per piece (repeat and invert) To verify against the image: exact number of modules (six black / five or six white — edge); technique screenprint/offset; whether the PGDA image (file nagai_n2.jpg, source Gurafiku) is really this sheet or a reprint. Measurement: module step ≈ 16.7% w; heel ≈ 12% v; shoe ≈ 88% v; text ≈ 95% v.

1. What it is — anti-war poster 1968, screenprint, 103 × 72.5 cm (MoMA 475.1987, gift of the designer; M+ 2018.618, 102.7 × 72.7). Client not stated in either record. Made a year after Herb Lubalin's No More War (1967, Avant Garde competition) — see Pairs.
2. Composition — the whole format covered by one primitive: a short black line (bomb), slightly tilted, repeated in tens of thousands of copies. The skull emerges purely from density difference — dense along the edges, sparse in the face, without a single drawn contour. The skull takes up ≈ 70% of the width, from ≈ 12% to 95% of the height; eye sockets ≈ (37, 40) and (62, 40)%; teeth ≈ 65–72% h. The eye never enters gradually — the skull is there immediately from a distance, and from half a metre it dissolves into a rain of bombs. Two readings, as with Keio, but by distance, not by figure-ground relation.
3. Colour — red ground, black line. The red is a mid-value tone: dark enough that black density builds shadow, light enough that sparse fields act as light. On white the skull would be a diagram; on red it is flesh.
4. Typography — none; one small line along the bottom edge, illegible in the available reproduction. The title exists only in the catalogue. This is a borderline case of One image, one word: one image, zero words.
5. Message — falling bombs are a skull; there is no metaphor to explain, because the image is its own cause and effect. At five metres: a skull. At half a metre: bombs. In between — the moment it becomes clear that one is the other.
6. Why exactly this way — screenprint in two colours, no tone: to get shadow without a halftone screen, Fukuda builds the screen out of content. The same procedure as Gerstner or Cieślewicz with an enlarged halftone dot, but here the dot isn't a dot but an object — that's what's new in 1968.
7. What would kill it — a skull outline (a single line): the bombs would become texture inside a drawing. Or bombs in two sizes: density stops being the only parameter and the image falls apart into "big and small".

Principles: Figure made only from density One primitive for everything Two reading distances Rebus forces performance One image, one word To verify against the image: whether the line is a bomb (with a tail) or a plain line — in the available reproduction it looks like a short rounded line without a tail; whether there is text along the bottom edge; the exact red. Measurement: skull (15–85, 12–95)%; eyes (37, 40) and (62, 40)%; teeth 65–72% h.

1. What it is — sheet #5 from the series Happy Earth Day 1982, offset, 100 × 70.7 cm (M+ 2016.739). The series has several sheets: UMMA 2017/2.89 is a SECOND poster of the same year and title (green-black globe in a white "holder" on blue — Earth as a seed that germinates, UMMA description). Analysed here is the sheet with the axe; see Notes on sources.
2. Composition — a red-orange field. A black axe stands upside down: the head is bottom left (≈ 15–60% w, 82–95% h), the handle upright through the middle (≈ 50–55% w), and at the top of the handle (≈ 5% h) two seedlings with leaves sprout. The lettering HAPPY / EARTHDAY in two lines sits bottom right (≈ 68–95% w, 84–92% h), green, with Japanese text left and right of it. The eye enters on the axe, the largest black mass, climbs the handle to the seedling and only then falls on the green lettering — a path from blade to leaf.
3. Colour — three: red-orange, black, green. Green is only on the word, not on the seedling — the seedling is black like the axe, because it is the axe. The green word is the only "living" tone and sits exactly where the eye ends its movement. On the axe there are thin white highlights (edge of the blade, wood grain) — an interruption of the black, not a fourth colour.
4. Typography — a condensed serif capitals (Clarendon-condensed class), green. The typeface classification is not confirmed. The tone of the type carries the mood of a 1980s poster about nature, instead of a grotesque — the only work of the eight where the type carries the mood.
5. Message — an axe that germinates: a tool cuts wood, and wood still grows through the tool. At three seconds you read the axe, at five the seedling, and from five metres there remains a black vertical on red — an exclamation mark. Passes the text-cover test.
6. Why exactly this way — the series has at least five sheets on the same theme: each must carry one different idea, the same format, the same economy of means. Here the operation substitute is at work: the top of the handle becomes the seedling. The upside-down axe is not a stylistic choice but a necessity — the seedling grows upward, so the head must be at the bottom.
7. What would kill it — a green seedling: the message would become an illustration of "even an axe can be good" instead of the paradox that wood is stronger than the tool. An axe in perspective would also hurt it — the diagrammatic legibility of the silhouette would be lost.

Principles: Object turned against its own function One operation per piece (substitute) One image, one word Flat colour reads at distance To verify against the image: the Japanese text next to the lettering (name of the organisation Earth Day Japan?); whether #5 is an M+ numbering or Fukuda's own; the colour of the ground (M+ states "red", the image shows red-orange). Measurement: handle (50–55)% w, 5–82% h; head (15–60, 82–95)%; lettering (68–95, 84–92)%.

1. What it is — poster for the designer's own exhibition Look 1, 1984; screenprint, 103 × 72.5 cm (MoMA 266.1986, gift of the designer). Wright 2018 sells a copy as offset on glossy paper from Rand's estate — two processes for the same sheet, or two editions; see Notes on sources. There is also a variant Look 1 (Mona Lisa) from the same year (Wright lot 248, Artsy).
2. Composition — a black field. A white silhouette of a man in an 18th-century coat, with a wig and a cane, walks right-and-down (head ≈ (78, 12)%, front foot ≈ (30, 68) %). Below him a white outline of a staircase in isometric view: three steps from the upper left to the lower right corner (≈ 5–85% w, 30–78% h). The trick is that the figure is drawn so that his front leg passes through a step — the staircase is an impossible object (Penrose type), and the figure doesn't notice it. Bottom left (≈ 4–22% w, 88–96% h) a multicoloured "sticker" LOOK 1 with Japanese text. The eye enters on the brightest element — the silhouette — then goes down the stairs, then snags at the point where the leg and step don't line up.
3. Colour — black and white, and one tiny colour zone (magenta, cyan, yellow, red) in the sticker. All the colour is squeezed into 2% of the surface, and at a point the eye visits last. The silhouette is a solid field, the staircase is just a line: two weights of white on black create depth without a single tone.
4. Typography — LOOK 1 as a pasted-on label, bold grotesque, in colour; the rest tiny Japanese. Typeface not confirmed. The label reads as a "foreign body" — the only element that isn't black-and-white and the only one that isn't hand-drawn.
5. Message — "Look" literally: look until you see the error. After three seconds of looking you read a gentleman descending stairs; after five — that the stairs aren't possible; after ten — that he doesn't know it, while the viewer does. From five metres' distance only the white figure on black reads, as a figure, not as a trick.
6. Why exactly this way — a poster for an exhibition of tricks is itself a trick (same as Keio 1975, nine years earlier), but here the device is an impossible object, not a figure/ground relation. The 18th-century silhouette is chosen because it's recognisable (Hogarth / costume iconography of a "gentleman") — it must read from a single contour so that all attention goes to the stairs.
7. What would kill it — the staircase as a solid white field, equalised with the figure: the two masses would collide and the depth would vanish. Or the figure in colour: the eye would stay on it and never arrive at the error.

Principles: Impossible object as argument Rebus forces performance One image, one word Black and white before colour To verify against the image: exact type of impossible staircase (Penrose / Escher Ascending and Descending); who the figure is (Hogarth? a generic "gentleman"); content of the sticker (date, exhibition venue). Measurements: head (78, 12) %; front foot (30, 68) %; staircase (5–85, 30–78) %; sticker (4–22, 88–96) %.

1. What it is — poster for the American tour of kyogen theatre, UCLA Asian Performing Arts Institute 1981 (Los Angeles, Washington D.C., New York — inscription), offset, printer Toppan, 103 × 72.8 cm (MoMA 599.1981, gift of UCLA). Same programme and same printer as Ikko Tanaka (田中一光)'s Nihon Buyo 1981 (MoMA 649.1981) — two posters from the same tour.
2. Composition — indigo field. A single white band, like a wide brush stroke or a kimono sleeve, winds into a spiral from the upper left corner (≈ 8% w, 8% h) toward the centre; at the centre of the spiral, in the indigo left showing through, a face in profile reads, turned downward (nose, closed eye — a smiling kyogen mask), and the tail of the band exits at the bottom (≈ 45% w, 82% h) and ends as a tabi foot with a toe. Sleeve, face and foot are one unbroken white stroke. The title KYOGEN is red, at the bottom (≈ 40–58% w, 88% h), a line of small text below it, designer's signature on the right. The eye enters at the outer end of the spiral and circles toward the face; the face is the reward at the end of the path.
3. Colour — three: indigo, white, red (title only). The face is not drawn in white but left in indigo — the background becomes the figure at one spot. The small indigo lines inside the white (sleeve folds, toe) are the only drawing in the piece.
4. Typography — KYOGEN in serif capitals (Clarendon class), red; a line of small text below. Not confirmed. The red word is the only warm point and sits beneath the foot — the ground the figure stands on.
5. Message — kyogen is comedy played out in a single sleeve gesture; the poster is one gesture. At five metres: a white spiral on blue (a mark, almost a mon). At two metres: the face. At half a metre: the foot, the toe, the folds.
6. Why exactly this way — the American audience doesn't know what kyogen is: the poster can't explain, it has to deliver one image that is both Japanese (brush, sleeve, mon) and universal (spiral, smile). The brief set: a whole body from a single stroke — and a face out of whatever the stroke doesn't cover.
7. What would kill it — a white face drawn inside the spiral: two white forms, the spiral stops being one stroke. Or a different colour for the sleeve: the mon becomes a costume illustration.

Principles: One primitive for everything (one stroke) One image, one word Rebus forces performance Flat colour reads at distance To verify against the image: whether the tail of the band is a foot or a sleeve (the tabi toe is not clearly visible); the content of the small line (cities, dates); comparison with Tanaka's sheet for the same tour — same measurements, same printer, opposite method (grid / stroke). Measurement: start of spiral (8, 8)%; centre of face ≈ (50, 42)%; tail (45, 82)%; title (40–58, 88)%.

1. What it is — poster for Children's Day (5 May), 1955, screenprint, 72.6 × 51.2 cm (MoMA 80.1990, Lauder Foundation). Student work (graduated 1956). Small inscription: 子どもの 日に・日本童画会 — for the Japan Society of Children's Pictures (Nihon Dōgakai); MoMA does not name a client.
2. Composition — olive field. At the top centre (≈ 50% w, 18% h) a small red figure of a child hangs upside down from a white horizontal bar (a shaft, ≈ 40–60% w); the bar has two white supports running down. The bottom half of the format (≈ 55–100% h) is a wall of white vertical Japanese text in five columns right to left, largest on the right (5月5日 — 5 May), shrinking leftward, with the smallest line all the way on the left (author and society). The eye enters on the red dot, falls on the large date, then reads leftward and downward.
3. Colour — three: olive, red, white. Red only on the child (≈ 1% of the surface) — the only warm point, like the KYOGEN inscription 26 years later. The white text is a tone of light, not information, at a distance.
4. Typography — Japanese gothic (sans), vertical setting, stepped column sizes; a class, not a specific typeface. The text is half the image: Wall of text as shape in the Japanese vertical mode — the block has geometry (a staircase right to left) before it is read.
5. Message — "Not only on 5 May — children's playgrounds should be thought about every day." The child hangs upside down from a single bar: the playground reduced to one object. At three seconds the red dot and the date read; at five metres, olive with the white staircase of text.
6. Why exactly this way — 1955, a student, screenprint in three colours, B2: the limitation of means is the same as twenty years later, and the solution is the same — one figure, one field, text as shape. This piece shows that the method didn't come from Switzerland in the 1960s but from screenprint and poverty in 1955.
7. What would kill it — the child upright on the bar: the one oddity disappears and a pictogram remains. Or the text in a single size: the wall loses its geometry and becomes a paragraph.

Principles: One image, one word Flat colour reads at distance Wall of text as shape To verify against the image: exact translation of the columns (このいち日だけでなく / 考えなければ / ならない / 子どもたちの / 楽しい遊び場を), not verified; whether it is a shaft or a frame, not verified; the author's signature in the small line, not verified. Measurement: child (50, 18)%; bar (40–60, 22)%; text 55–100% h, largest column ≈ 80–95% w.

1. What it is — official poster for the 19th Montreux Jazz Festival, 5–20 July 1985 (inscription). No museum record found; technique and measurements not confirmed — by appearance, offset in six colours. Made nine years after Milton Glaser's poster for the same festival (1976).
2. Composition — grey-beige field. A large black treble clef running the full height (≈ 30–75% w, 2–92% h). Around the clef and over it, eight to nine speech bubbles from comic strips (cloud, star-burst "pow", rounded) in flat colours, with tails emerging FROM the clef — the clef "speaks" in several voices at once. At the bottom, a single line of black capitals (≈ 92–96% h): 19 JAZZ FESTIVAL · MONTREUX · 5-20 juillet 1985. The eye enters on the black mass, then jumps across the bubbles like a beat — no single path, a pulse.
3. Colour — six: grey-beige base, black, ultramarine, magenta, orange, green. The bubbles OVERLAP with the clef so that black passes over some, and some pass over black — depth comes from layer order, not tone. The grey-beige base keeps four colours equally loud (on white the yellow would vanish, on black the blue would).
4. Typography — condensed bold grotesque (sans serif), capitals, black, one line along the bottom; not confirmed. The text is the quietest element: everything loud is already in the image.
5. Message — jazz is a single sign (the clef) speaking in many voices at once; bubbles without text = sound that cannot be written down. At five metres: the black clef + colourful "confetti"; at three seconds: festival, music, celebration. Passes the text-cover test (place and date stay hidden, but the theme doesn't).
6. Why exactly this way — the festival calls for celebration and recognisability from thirty metres away (street poster, Switzerland); Fukuda doesn't build a trick but an ANALOGY: improvisation = many voices from one source, shown in comic-strip code that anyone can read. The only one of eight works where he abandons the paradox — and the only one with more than three colours.
7. What would kill it — text inside the bubbles (musicians' names): the bubbles stop being sound and become a programme. Or a coloured clef: the one black mass holding the colourful bubbles together would be lost.

Principles: Analogy instead of illustration One image, one word Flat colour reads at distance To verify against the image: exact number of bubbles and colours; format (Montreux series — to verify in the festival archive); whether this is Fukuda's only Montreux (Glaser did several). Measurement: clef (30–75, 2–92)%; text 92–96% h.

Third sheet of the series Hiroshima Appeals (JAGDA, from 1983; PGDA copies the MAAS/Powerhouse description: a globe outlined by meridians, "broken at one corner, a hand with a cuff emerging in an attempt to put the broken world back together"). Sand-beige field; a large indigo globe (≈ 12–88% w, 3–70% h) with a grid of meridians and parallels cut out in white (where the lines cross, holes); upper left (≈ 22, 12%) a white fist with a cuff inside the globe — holding it like a ball, or emerging from it. At the bottom, APPEALS in pink, wide light capitals across the full width (≈ 84–97% h), over it a red diagonal band HIROSHIMA in white, and "1985" small in the middle. Same series as Ikko Tanaka (田中一光) 1988 (Cooper Hewitt) and Kamekura 1983: Fukuda is the only one not using the fire/ash metaphor but an object (the globe as a ball in a hand) — Object turned against its own function in reverse: the hand doesn't throw, it holds. Not confirmed whether the fist is "inside" or "outside" (MAAS states "emerges"). The exact number of sheets in the series is not confirmed. The PGDA date of 1958 is an error — the poster reads 1985.