Shigeo Fukuda is best known for poster designs that distill complex ideas into simple, eye-catching graphics. Fukuda focused his efforts on social, cultural, and political advocacy, making use of universal imagery and his signature minimalist graphic style to design posters for the 1970 World Expo in Osaka and Amnesty International, as well as for environmentalist and anti-war causes. One of his most famous posters, the prize-winning “Victory 1945” (1975), depicts an artillery shell being aimed back into the opening of a cannon barrel.
The New York Times described Fukuda’s posters “distill[ing] complex concepts into compelling images of logo-simplicity”. His commercial work included his creation of the official poster for the 1970 World’s Fair in Osaka. A 1980 poster created for Amnesty International features a clenched fist interwoven with barbed wire, with the letter “S” in the word “Amnesty” at the top of the poster formed from a linked shackle. A pair of posters created to celebrate Earth Day include a design showing the Earth as a seed opening against a solid sea-blue background and “1982 Happy Earth Day”, which shows an axe with its head against the ground and a small branch sprouting upwards from its handle.
In 1987, Fukuda was inducted into the Art Directors Club Hall of Fame in New York City, which described him as “Japan’s consummate visual communicator”, making him the first Japanese designer chosen for this recognition. The Art Directors Club noted the “bitingly satirical commentary on the senselessness of war” shown in “Victory 1945”, which won him the grand prize at the 1975 Warsaw Poster Contest, a competition whose proceeds went to the Peace Fund Movement.
His designs often feature visual puns or double meanings in a style that evokes the tessellations and illusions of artist M.C. Escher.
