Peace Gallery
photographs, video, and film
Masuteru Aoba, creator of this year’s Hiroshima Appeals Poster
by Kohei Okada, Staff Writer
“PEACE” or “peace.” Masuteru Aoba, 69, asked people to make impressions of this word on paper using stamps he had devised in several different fonts. He then fashioned the results into a poster for peace. Two of his small granddaughters stamped the word, as did Mayor Tadatoshi Akiba, but no one can point to their own contributions on the poster. “That is what peace is,” said Mr. Aoba, “each person quietly doing their part.” He gazes proudly at the shape created by countless impressions, a sphere that might strike some as a sun, others as an orb of passion.
A powerful focus on social issues characterizes the work of this graphic designer. His famous poster for the Tokyo Metropolitan Government is a photo of a puddle on the street sullied by tossed cigarette butts with the tag “NOT AN ASHTRAY.” He has also created advertisements for major corporations.
Mr. Aoba has produced unique peace posters for 30 years. On one, silhouetted hands curl to resemble a dove with the words “Peace is in your hands.” On another, two criss-crossed rifles bend into halves of a heart at their tips, proclaiming “THE END.” “I’m partial to appealing designs that an elementary school student can understand,” he says. “If my posters can’t be understood anywhere in the world, what’s the point?”
Mr. Aoba has a personal connection to Hiroshima. Since childhood, he has come to Hiroshima a number of times to see his aunt and uncle. That aunt, who runs a gallery, often urged her nephew to “hold a one-man show on peace posters in Hiroshima.” One day, in fact, Mr. Aoba visited Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum three times. “When I was commissioned to create the Hiroshima Appeals Poster, I was determined to do my best,” he remarked. “When you’re charged with communicating the heart of Hiroshima to the world, failure is not an option.”
Observing the world from a designer’s perspective and refining one’s sensibilities--to Mr. Aoba, this is what it means to be a professional. “Adding that extra touch on top of what the client asks is a diversion of mine,” he laughs. Mr. Aoba and his wife live in Shibuya Ward, Tokyo.
(Originally published on August 2, 2008)
