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A graphic poster on a pink background features a white sock with a red circle, resembling the Japanese flag. Curved text around the edge reads “Rising From A Night’s Sleep Observations of the Everyday in Japanese Graphic Design”. The poster lists the dates “July 12–August 3, 2015” alongside bold red numerals and Japanese characters. Smaller text at the bottom mentions an opening reception in “Milwaukee, WI, USA”.
A graphic poster on a pink background features a white sock with a red circle, resembling the Japanese flag. Curved text around the edge reads “Rising From A Night’s Sleep Observations of the Everyday in Japanese Graphic Design”. The poster lists the dates “July 12–August 3, 2015” alongside bold red numerals and Japanese characters. Smaller text at the bottom mentions an opening reception in “Milwaukee, WI, USA”.

Japanese designer Tadashi Ueda is back with some ambiguously playful posters

Words
Rebecca Fulleylove
—
Date
2 September 2015

We featured graphic designer Tadashi Ueda last summer and his innocent and cheery style was a welcome relief from the slick logos and over-photographed projects we’ve all come across. Since then the Tokyo-based creative has a slew of new and playful work that is hard to resist with its unabashed simplicity. Almost blending graphic design with illustration, Tadashi uses a mixture of uncomplicated imagery, obscure symbols and a jumble of type to create his posters. Bright colours jump about the page in Tadeshi’s irregular composition which only adds to their mischievous ambiguity.

An illustration on a red background featuring various objects and characters from the story of Journey to the West. A pink, cloud-like figure with a single eye appears alongside a cracked egg, a golden hoop, and two crossed green staffs. Text reads “Wonder Boy [monkey] Son Gokuu!” and “Sai Yu Ki”.
Above
Left

Tadashi Ueda: A little strange journey to the west

Right

Tadashi Ueda: Untitled

A digital illustration on a bright green background featuring several irregular, colourful blobs in red, yellow, pink and black. The phrase “News is uncertain.” is repeated four times around the edges of the frame in a white sans-serif font.
Above

Tadashi Ueda: Untitled

A graphic illustration of a black, right-angled shape containing white text on a pale pink background. The letters and numbers are arranged linearly along the shape, including the sequence “2020”.
Above
Left

Tadashi Ueda: Untitled

Right

Tadashi Ueda: A little while ago we saw a gecko

An abstract illustration in yellow, grey and blue against a black background. A grey triangle sits atop a yellow organic shape, flanked by a pale yellow rectangle and the vertical text “I have seen”.
Above

Tadashi Ueda: A little while ago we saw a gecko

An abstract illustration in orange, black and grey. Bold geometric shapes and a large numeral “2” overlap against a neutral background.
Above
Left

Tadashi Ueda: 2

Right

Tadashi Ueda: ATOM

An illustration of two stylised figures on a peach background with diagonal green lines. The letters “A”, “T”, “O”, “M”, “T” and “A” are scattered around the figures.
Above

Tadashi Ueda: ATOM

A graphic poster featuring the word “Yale” repeated six times in a vertical stack. The peach-coloured text is set against a light blue shape with a wavy right edge, all centered on a bright blue background.
Above
Left

Tadashi Ueda: Yale

Right

Tadashi Ueda: Harvard

A typographic poster in green and peach. Stylised, distorted letters are arranged to spell “harvard” across the frame.
Above

Tadashi Ueda: Harvard

A yellow typographic poster for a “Tadashi Ueda Solo Show”. It lists the venue as “OZspace” in Tokyo, Japan, with dates from 20 June to 21 June 2015. A simple red line map occupies the centre, with a small arrow pointing to “here”. The bottom of the poster reads “t/a/t/e/n/a/g/a/”.
Above
Left

Tadashi Ueda: Solo Show, t/a/t/e/n/a/g/a/

Right

Tadashi Ueda: Voids is nothing

An illustration in yellow, black and white. Bold text reads “VOIDS IS NOTHING.” around a central white space containing two yellow figures.
Above

Tadashi Ueda: Voids is nothing

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Further Info

www.tadashiueda.tumblr.com

About the Author

Rebecca Fulleylove

—

Rebecca Fulleylove is a freelance writer and editor specialising in art, design and culture. She is also senior writer at Creative Review, having previously worked at Elephant, Google Arts & Culture, and It’s Nice That.

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