Makoto Saito: The image maker

Graphis, Sep/Oct 2002 by Weill, Alain

The success of Makoto Saito can only be under-stood against the backdrop of Japan in the '80s: the country's lightning-quick economic rise and 10 years of double-digit growth until the speculative bubble burst. A decade earlier, Japan was still a relatively withdrawn country, but by the '80s it had developed the appetite of an ogre. In no time at all, Tokyo became a pole of attraction for anyone with creative talent. A city whose nightlife featured clones of The Beatles and Elvis, top reggae and Congolese music performed live, and the greatest discos-a country whose younger generation wallowed in the unabashed consumerism that made fashion a religion.

In the late '70s, the Seibu Group created Parco-a new department store concept-and entrusted Eiko Ishioka with its promotion, thus opening new vistas to poster design. Shortly afterwards, fashion, from Shibuya to Harajuku, took the land by storm. Readyto-wear labels and the accompanying fashion department stores (Laforet, Vivre 21) mushroomed, offering a whole generation of graphic designers the opportunity to express themselves with a liberty that astounds people even today. It was a period that saw the creation of Alpha Cubic by former Yves Saint-Laurent importer Shibata, and of Batsu by Ruki Matsumoto. Shibata, an enthusiast of enlightened art, and Matsumoto-at the time, on his way to becoming the world's greatest collector of vintage posters-represented Japan's new business elite. Such men realized that it takes strong posters to promote a brand name, and make an impact on the image-saturated youth being targeted.

Their approach was the opposite of the traditional marketing strategy with which both customers and graphic designers were familiar. Even the poster distribution differed from anything Westerners had ever seen. For instance, of the four posters Saito produced for Virgin in 1991, 60 copies of two different versions of the poster were pasted up for a single week, 370 for an entire month, and then the campaign was over. These appeared at commercial sites where teenagers were known to gather, but the campaign seemed ridiculously limited in time and scope compared to traditional media planning. In the end, however, the expected effect occurred. Certainly, not a single client availing him or herself of Saito's services has regretted it.

At 50, there is still a bit of the young playboy in Saito, in love with his Rolex and his sports cars. Much like Picabia, an artist he admires and whose insolence and provocative stance he tends to share-his attitude is rare in Japan. In various interviews, Saito has expressed scorn for, pell-mell, the fine arts, contemporary Japanese literature, his colleagues (with the exception of a mere four or five), the large firms where he serves as marketing consultant or artistic director and at whose expense, cynically enough, he makes a fortune. Yet, it is with sincerity and enthusiasm that he broaches the subject of his creative endeavors, revealing boundless love for the printed object-even mentioning how he hates the idea of his work being trashed after serving its purpose. Indeed, he would prefer people who steal his posters to hold on to them, to preserve them.

His first poster, designed in 1976, at the age of 26, was for Alpha Cubic. It shows a naked woman with a salmon in her hands and, already, it represents all that was to become his signature style: a bold layout (the woman's head is cropped) and no wording except for the brand name. This is one of his rules, for words can lie. He seeks emotions and energy that can fuel his imagination. His posters, in the early '80s, were still linked to fashion brands such as Parco, Jun and Rope-all loyal customers. The layout for them, whether in color or black-and-white, was superb. In 1984, however, he freed himself from this still somewhat classic approach: his poster for Y.M.C.A., another ready-to-wear label, features mere fragments of the human body and heavily saturated blacks, while the Alpha Cubic poster reduces the clothing pieces to empty drawings strewn with suggested lettering.

At this point, Saito had made a clean break, as confirmed in his 1985 posters for, respectively, Hasegawa Buddhist funeral altars-- stark blue hip and leg bones-and again for Alpha Cubic, featuring relic-like disembodied body parts-a foot, a lower calf, a face and a forearm. Works far removed from realism, but governed by the designer's imagination and symbolic intent. Saito produces the never before seen and the never before dared. The forcefulness and emotional impact of his posters are unprecedented. I still remember the shock I felt upon discovering them and the sudden, imperious need to meet this designer then and there.

Since that time, each passing year has brought its share of surprises. Continuing to obey his imagination, Saito has experimented with all styles: the black-and-white shot of a man seen from behind, for Jun, in yellow-and-black for Kind Wear, or the five posters that form a cross for Taiyo Printing. His shots for Alpha Cubic are increasingly intricate-recolored, cut up, pasted, mounted. His artistry here attains a level that makes it difficult to draw the line between graphic design and art in the noblest sense of the word. In short, his imagination and technical skill are the source of true masterpieces-eye-catching posters that unfailingly fascinate.