Chapter Commentaries 3

During the 1960s, when the word designer" came into common use in Japan, Uno was an active participant in advertising design. He worked at the Nippon Design Center (NDC), establiched in 1959, together with Kazumasa Nagai and other up-and-coming designers. Uno was in charge of corporate ads for Toshiba and Toyota Motor. That same year, he won the Member's Award at the 10th NISSEMBI-ten for his "Cashmilon" posters for Asahi Chemical Industry. Tadanori Yokoo recalls that, at that time, Uno was known for his fashion as well as for his unique illustrations. ［1] Indeed he was the only one in the company who had a mass media presence.

In the 1960s, Uno made an impression with his psychedelic-color illustrations of people metamorphizing into plants.These were featured in a calendar for Kokusaku Pulp Industry, SUNDIA magazine (Ogawa & Co., LTD.) and elsewhere. The illustrations perhaps best known were a series of ads for Max Factor cosmetics. In 1965, he started up Studio Re, where he worked with photographer Hideki Fujii and copywriter Atsuko Ishizaki to create ads that skillfully combined photographs and illustrations. Max Factor posters and newspaper ads created at Studio Re communicated corporate images that were both highly sophisticated and full of a dreamlike quality. For these works, Uno won the Silver Prize of the Tokyo ADC (Art Directors Club) Awards in 1965 and 1966. In the world of ad design, the personality of the designer usually remains hidden, but Uno was able to fully exploit his own unique aesthetics.

［1] "Around the time ND was founded, Akira Uno dyed his hair red, hung necklaces from his neck and down his back, wore flashy pink slacks that we all referred to as slimmer than his legs, applied cau de cologne, and showered us all with his dubious sexual charm." Tadanori Yokoo' Mikan e no dasso (Escape from Incompletion), Kodansha, 1970, p.152.