Weird and wonderful Japanese graphic design from Tadashi Ueda

Thank God that in the barren scrap heap of graphic design littered with apps, bogus coffee shop logos and poorly thought-out iPad swipe features there is someone making work infused with joy, love and humour. Tadashi Ueda’s designs have such a child-like innocence and excitable fascination with exploration – he utilises colours and shapes laid out in unpredictable grids to take the viewer’s hand and lead them on a journey into his eyeballs to witness the way in which he sees the world.

A far cry away from some more super-nice stationary laid out on coloured backgrounds and shot with an HD camera, this work is experimental to the point of jumping categories from graphic design into art. We often wonder if Japanese graphic design is only appealing because of the mystery – the fact that the majority of us don’t know what the exotic characters even mean. I think this time it’s safe to say that that’s not the case – even if these posters were actually advertising a funeral of a loved-one, I’d still enjoy them.