ZEN Environmental Design, 1974 — Promotional Book [Design: Takenobu Igarashi]

ZEN Environmental Design by Zenichi Nakamura, 1977. ZEN Environmental Design, Fukuoka, Japan. 9.875 x 12.25, pp. 32 with stiff French-folded wrappers. Japanese and English text. Printed in Japan. Book design by Takenobu Igarashi and Yoshitsuyo Noma. Printed in an unknown quantity, presumably for promotional use only and never sold publicly.

ZEN Environmental Design was founded in 1959 and specialized in large-scale city planning, landscape architecture of resorts and parks, to street furniture and signage design. The ZEN promotional booklet published the work of (11) California artists under the basic theme of environment. With a short Preface theorizing ZEN’s belief system and an Introductory text by ZEN’s founder, Zenichi Nakamura discussing the exchange of ideas between the client–designer relationship and its’ effect on ZEN’s office design. Reprinted from Japan Interior Design, No. 182, May 1974. 

Laid-in is a folded-sheet with participating artists short biographies including: Dave Bhang, John Casado, Rod Dyer, Mick Haggerty, John Van Hamersveld, Glen Akira Iwasaki, Kenneth McGowan, Mike Salisbury, Greg Thomas, Don Weller, Shoei Yoh (Office Desiger), as well as the photographer of this volume Yoshitsuyo Noma and the designer, Takenobu Igarashi. Illustrated throughout with full-page color designs, illustrations and photographs.

Igarashi originally designed the ZEN logo in 1974: “I was making sketches searching for a form of refreshing simplicity, free from all excesses. In the strokes of my rough sketch I saw the outline of the letters and decided to use it as a logo as it is. I felt something very pure and essential in the form created in the process of design. It was the moment I recognized the simple beauty in the form of a logo, still incomplete without a direction and at the starting point of design.”

A very good wrapper with light wear along the edges and a slight bend to the upper right-hand corner. Some sunning to the spine and covers. Some dried glue to the inside seams along the binding.