Japan Moderne: Design Gems from the 1920s and ’30s

Description:

The Japan Moderne: Design Gems from the 1920s and ’30s Postcards collection captures a pivotal moment in Japan’s design history, when modern graphics, typography, and commercial art began to take new form.

Drawn from this rich archive, the postcards highlight bold compositions, vivid color, and a dynamic approach to visual communication shaped by the Deco era. Each card stands as both artifact and composition, offering a direct connection to a period where print modernism in Japan was being actively defined.

This set includes 40 postcards featuring 20 selected images from The Complete Commercial Artist (Gendai shōgyō bijutsu zenshū), a landmark publication launched in the late 1920s. Spanning 24 volumes, the journal presented the work of early Japanese design visionaries across posters, window displays, illuminated signage, and more.

Measurements:

5 x 7 in

History:

Letterform Archive Publishers grew out of the broader mission of the Letterform Archive, a San Francisco–based institution founded in 2015 to preserve and share the history of lettering, typography, and graphic design.

As the collection expanded, publishing became a natural extension of the archive’s work. Drawing directly from its holdings, the publishing arm produces books, ephemera, and printed materials that make rare and historically significant design accessible to a wider audience. Rather than functioning as a traditional publisher, it operates as a bridge between archive and reader, translating physical artifacts into thoughtfully edited, contemporary formats.

Through its publications, Letterform Archive extends the life of its collection beyond the reading room, presenting design history as something to be handled, studied, and used.

Materials:

40 postcards enclosed in box

Care Instructions:

Use for writing, or display the prints.

Stationery and books are final sale.