comic animals, imaginary coats of arms, intricate ornamentation, and
portraits of real and mythical beings. These were common naturalistic
images for a good many packages before the age of pseudo-scientific
branding. Matchboxes made at the turn of the century used English as
the common language, indicating the broad scope of international trade.
But each nation also maintained a distinct iconographic accent that
revealed its unique visual heritage and national preoccupations (e.g., the
samurai or Mt. Fuji for Japan).
Japan’s match industry was exceptionally prodigious, and the
designs produced were various, plentiful, and consistent with the early
twentieth-century expansion of the nation’s heavy industries. Commercial
art played an important role, in general, as it developed brand recognition
and sales for new industrial products. It put Japanese graphic designers at
the forefront of what is now called “branding.” The designers were clearly
influenced by imported European styles such as Victorian and art nouveau,
and later by Art Deco and the Bauhaus, which were introduced through
Japanese graphic arts trade magazines and incorporated into the design of
matchbox labels during the late 1920 s and 1930 s. Western graphic
mannerisms were harmoniously combined with traditional Japanese styles
and geometries from the Meiji period ( 1868 – 1912 ), typified by both their
simple and complex ornamental compositions. Since matches were a big
export industry, and the Japanese dominated the markets in the United
States, Australia, England, France, and even India, matchbox design
exhibited a hybrid typography that wed Western and Japanese styles into an
intricate mélange. The domestic brands, however, were routinely designed
in a more reductive—though typically Japanese—manner, solely using
Kanji characters.
In Japan, matchboxes were a mainstay of daily, vernacular culture.
Safety matches became an important staple in part because they satisfied a
primal social need (fire), and because of the nation’s substantial lumber
industry, which supplied a near endless supply of material. The largest
Japanese match manufacturers, including Shungen & Co., Mitsui & Co.,
Seiryukwan, and Koyoukan Binnaka Seizo, from Osaka, Koshi, and
Himeji, Japan, were all well known, but the artists who created their
respective designs were purposely kept in the shadows—like most
commercial artisans in other quotidian fields.
Anonymity was the fate for those who produced the most vibrant,
as well as the most ephemeral, products of the Japanese popular arts.
Nonetheless, certain manufacturers were known for certain styles designed
to appeal to different aesthetic tastes. Nisshinsha’s labels often featured a
central “trademark” (a rabbit suggesting good luck) or a vignette (two-
tuis.
(Tuis.)
#1