Until independence in 1991 from the Soviet Union, Estonia’s art culture had been isolated and limited for about half a century. While yearning for the Western art, Estonian artists focused on denouncing the absurdity of the society under the Soviet regime through numerous caricatures, and Estonian citizens were exposed to these images through literary newspapers and satirical magazines. This aspect of the history, however, has not yet been widely discussed in the international forum. This paper reveals the historical facts of the Estonian caricature culture by identifying the relationship between publications and caricaturists in Estonia during the Soviet era through the collection of the remaining few primary source materials and oral history collected from the people involved.
To examine the publication culture, the paper first outlined the characteristics and differences of Sirp ja Vasar, a literary newspaper, and Pikker, a satirical magazine, as well as their relationship with other caricature collection books and satirical magazines in neighboring countries. Next, it divided Estonian caricaturists into three generations and analyzed their respective activities. This section focuses on caricaturist Priit Pärn and his effort to educate Estonian citizens with humor through the satirical magazine. Furthermore, the study revealed how the caricature culture eventually lost the momentum and finally ceased to exist.
In this essay, I present a fragment of the history of Estonian caricatures during the formation of a closed culture in the Soviet era.

In Baroque Age in Europe, there were published many emblem books, of which was made up a new literary-pictorial genre, being consisted of texts and images and making the reciprocal function between them. The room of ‘Paraninfo’ of Palacio de la Autonomía in Mexico City was decorated by the images of 12 sibyls, which Pedro Sandoval painted in oils in the middle of the18th century. These images were derived from those which were included in one version of XII Sibyllarum icones elegatissimi of Chrispijn de Passe, Dutch engraver (Utrecht, 1601), i.e., Jacque Granthomme’s version (Paris, 1602-09). The walls of the cloister at the Monastery of St Francis (Salvador, Baia were covered by the ‘azulejos’, the decorative tiles colored in blue and white, which were produced in Portugal. All of 37 scenes of these walls were composited faithfully according to the images which were included in the Spanish version of Emblemata horatiana published by Otto Vaenius, Dutch painter (Antwerp, 1607).

The paper aims to examine the design methods used by the Dutch graphic designer Paul Schuitema (1897-1973). The analysis deals with the covers of de 8 en Opbouw, a magazine designed by Schuitema from 1932 to 1937. First, this paper discusses the background of these covers. Second, it investigates the magazine’s images, such as photographs and drawings. Finally, we elucidate the relationship between image layouts and the logotype. In conclusion, we point out the following features of the design of the covers of de 8 en Opbouw:
1) The layout of the covers demonstrates a change from varying arrangements of logotypes to a fixed one.
2) The direct association between the images on the cover and those inside the magazine almost disappears; the proportion of the types of images tends to become standard.
3) The layout of the image and logotype on the covers showed that the two were partially superimposed; there was little commonality and standardization in the arrangement of the covers.
The results provide a corrective perspective on the recognition of the covers of de 8 en Opbouw as a body of Schuitema ’s work that shows the same tendency.

This study proposes an alternative perspective on Modernist Art, exploring the issue of the relationship between British Avant-garde Art and print media in the early 20th Century through the approach to graphic design by Wyndham Lewis and in regards to Vorticism. We examined artworks and documents in Japan, the UK, and the US and reconsidered print media which were supported by the artist’s manifesto, in order to reposition the reproduction techniques of ‘printing’ in the context of the thought of Modernist Art in a broad sense. Addressing mainly the Vorticist Journal of Blast launched in 1914 and separating it from a genealogy of Futurist design that originated in natural sound (onomatopoeia), or Apollinaire’s concrete poetry, this study reached the conclusion that Blast had an impact on great artists and theorists such as El Lissitzky and Russian Constructivism in terms of abstract design, as well as in Marshall McLuhan’s media theory.

Many visual representations such as photographs, pictures, cartoons, graphs, figures, tables, and formulas have been described in science textbooks. Nowadays, digital textbooks are prevalent in Japanese schools in order to achieve Society 5.0: A human-centered society that balances economic advancement with the resolution of social problems through a system that integrates cyberspace and physical space. As a result, students have to view enormous illustrations because they contain more information than paper textbooks. Thus, it is necessary to research visual representations that have been described in science textbooks.
Presently, teaching materials related to technology in digital science textbooks are focused on emphasizing science, technology, engineering, and mathematics education (STEM education) for the implementation of problem-based learning in Japanese schools.
In this study, photographs and movies in digital science textbooks for elementary and lower
secondary schools were first analyzed. The results indicated that the human aspect of technology is indistinct to students. Additionally, images of “technology” in digital science textbooks were researched for attached school students (n=374).
Finally, this study suggests that students themselves need to create learning materials through the method of digital story-telling in order to clearly understand the meaning of technology.

This article aims to identify European prints studied by one of the representative Japanese artists in late Edo period Aodo Denzen (1748-1822) and to specify Denzen’s method and characteristic of imitation and invention
Denzen was ordered to acquire etching technique brought from Europe, by Matsudaira Sadanobu, the load of Shirakawa (1783-1812) and chief senior councilor of the Tokugawa shogunate (1787-1793). Probably Denzen tried to imitate European prints he founded while learning the technique from the imported books through interpreters.
This article will treat the etchings conserved abroad and indicate View of the City Hall in Paris made by French Jacques Rigaud, and the Portrait César de Choiseul by various artists as respectively models of The Enclosure of Zerumania, and Drawing of Western Man by Denzen.
Concerning Denzin’s method, we can suppose that Denzen traced laying a sheet of thin paper on the models. This method might be relevant to the print art. The print is necessary to reflect the image concepted by artist through drawings and it seems that the thin paper is adequate materials to reflect them. This article will discuss how the tracing and reflecting technique was introduced in the European books Denzen referred and if these European methods are relevant to that of Denzen.

Marco Marie de Rotz (1840–1914), a missionary from the Missions étrangères de Paris (M.E.P.) who devoted his life to evangelizing and community activities in Nagasaki after arriving in Japan in 1868, is known for producing a set of large woodblock prints (popularly called “de Rotz’s prints”) at Oura Church. These prints and the doctrinal manuals published earlier under the authorization of Bishop Petitjean are precious historical materials that give us an insight into the actual practice of Catholic religious teaching in those days.
My research focuses on five woodblock prints employed to teach doctrines relating to “Four Last Things” that were included in a set of ten “de Rotz’s prints” made between 1875 and 1877, as well as two lithograph books, Misa haireishiki and Rozariyo kiroku in which distinctive decorative patterns were added to each of the pages. Comparing these works with Chinese prints and other sources, I made a thorough analysis of each image and decorative pattern in order to illuminate unique features created especially for the Catholic missions in Japan. In addition to confirming the historical fact that such missionary activities were directed towards Kakure Kirishitan (“hidden Christians”), women, and children, my research also reveals another aspect of cultural exchange between East and West in Nagasaki during the new era.

The purpose of this paper is to clarify the relationship between the legal protection of graphic design and Functionality. Functionality is related to the notion of “article” under Art. 2(1) of the Design Act 1959 and also associated with the topic of copyright protection on applied art. First, this paper outlines the relationship between the concept of “Design” and the legal system. It considers the role of the notion of “article” in the protection under the Design Act and the topic of copyright protection on applied art. Then, it moves to the examination of the legal protection of graphic design from a perspective of the relationship with the concept of Functionality.
The conclusion is as follows. The Design Act is established based on the understanding that design is integrated with an article. Such an understanding may be appropriate in the field of product design. However, it is not always the case for graphic design. In light of the treatment of the practical purposes and functions of graphic design in the legal protection, it seems appropriate for copyright protection to play a central role in graphic design, unless significant changes in the institutional structure of the Design Law are assumed. Concerning graphic design, it is not necessary, in principle, to consider the practical purpose or function in copyright protection, and the application of creativity as the standard requirement of copyrightability will bring appropriate outcomes for disputes.

This study focuses on graphical user interfaces (GUIs), which combine digital technology and design. GUI is not merely a design but also an interface, which is connected with user and software and provides easy operation using graphics like icon and button. GUIs are directly connected to user experience and can significantly impact consumers’ choice of products. As a result, companies devote significant resources to the development of GUIs. This means that both appropriate IP rights protection of GUIs and the freedom to operate in the IP rights landscape are very important economic issues for incumbent companies and new market entrants. By its nature, the software is generally developed to have broad application. For instance, the technical contributions of GUIs (e.g. improvement of usability and accessibility) may need patent protection. For the aesthetic elements of the appearance of GUIs, design protection is likely to be most relevant. GUIs may also obtain copyright protection as an original expression. Further, they may have the function of identifying the source of products, in which case trademark protection is also relevant. However, according to the judicial precedent of copyright law and unfair competition prevention law, it is often the case that the protection is limited.
In particular, focusing on “Look and Feel” which is the feature of GUIs, we consider whether to harmonize with patent and design legislation and interact considering GUIs. Moreover, we conduct a comparative law analysis of current systems and judicial interpretations in other countries.

In 1937 Serizawa Keisuke’s illustrated edition of Miguel de Cervantes’ Don Quixote de La Mancha was published under the title Ehon Don Kihote. The present text aims to contextualize this picture book as an example of a mingei artwork created by an “artist-craftsperson,” presenting it as a relevant example that illustrates the Mingei movement’s apparent contradiction between the concept of the “unknown craftsperson” and the “artist-craftsperson,” and their different approach to craft creation. Serizawa was linked to the mingei group from an early stage, and he received the commission to create his Ehon Don Kihote in 1935, at a time when the Mingei movement was in its early development. Therefore, Serizawa’s picture book was created within the context of the early stages of this movement and his own involvement in it. This analysis will place Ehon Don Kihote within the theories put forward by Yanagi Soetsu during these years, in relation to folk art, craft and painting. On the other hand, this analysis aims to situate Ehon Don Kihote within the context of the multiple and varied visual representations of the adventures of Don Quixote. As an illustrated interpretation of Cervantes’ masterpiece, it undoubtedly occupies an important position within the corpus of illustrated renditions of the adventures of the Castilian hidalgo Don Quixote and his sidekick Sancho Panza.

Even though the typographer’s work conventionally is to layout a given text in the most readable or accessible way, to guarantee the least interference possible between the text and the reader, there is a task beyond that: Typographers may put forward the distinct qualities and ideas of a text by translating it into a coherent visual form, a form that communicates a specific idea. As such typography is concerned with the meaning of words and their arrangement within a given surface.
This research focusses on ways explored in typography to use letters as means of expression in order to emphasize the semantic, phonetic or visual qualities of language. From the liberated language of the Futurists to the experiments of the Dadaists, and the “New Typography” in the 1920s and into the heyday of Swiss modernist typography, we have seen a constant investigation into experimental uses of typography. But when speaking of typographic design and its influence on language, the voice of the concrete poets is often overlooked. As a poetic movement that emerged in the beginning of the 1950s in several European countries and South America, concrete poetry established itself internationally before fading into oblivion by the end of the1970s. The following text tries to contextualize concrete poetry within the field of typography with a particular focus on the work of Swiss-Bolivian poet Eugen Gomringer one of the key figures of the movement.

This paper examines stylistic and technical changes of advertising in colonial Korea from the mid-1920s to the 1930s. By elucidating the relationship between Korean and Japanese advertising, it explores broader social and colonial implications of the specific design changes in advertisements. During the period under examination, expressive, decorative, and hand-drawn letterforms, distinct from both movable type and traditional calligraphy, appeared in
advertisements by some Korean companies. This type of letterforms had first emerged in Japanese commercial art from the 1920s, which was often called “design letters” (zuan moji). In Japan this typographical style represented the modernity of an expanding consumerist culture. Some pioneering Korean advertisers quickly adopted this stylistic vocabulary in the 1920s, and they also contributed to the spread of design letters in Korean advertising more generally in the 1930s.
As in Japan, design letters very possibly represented a “modern” consumerist culture in Korea, and their appearance in Korean advertisements may illustrate an existence of modernity. Yet I argue that these advertisements reflected a “displayed modernity” in colonial Korea. By displayed modernity I mean that it was superficial rather than realised systemically: there existed a clear dissonance between the visual images of affluence and actual consumption. While such a dissonance may exist in advertising in any context, it was particularly significant in colonial Korea. Despite the stylistic refinement on the page, local production technologies to sustain the creation of the images themselves, in terms of both the practice of business in general and advertising design in particular, were broadly limited.