青幻舎 SEIGENSHA Art Publishing

The creative design team Spread is known for colorful and striking works that fuse techniques of landscape design and graphic design. The pair’s projects incorporate memory—of the environment, living things, objects, time, history, color, glyphs—in all its infinite variety so as to “spread,” or expand, creative possibilities. Their impressive portfolio includes art direction and design for the key visuals marking the tenth anniversary of the National Art Center, Tokyo, and brand design for the Tsubame Sanjo Factory Festival, a major factory-tour event in Niigata Prefecture. 

Now, in commemoration of Spread’s fifteenth anniversary, comes a book that presents these and other works along with the philosophies that guided their creation.

Spread by Spread showcases a spectrum of the team’s commissioned and self-initiated projects. The former includes the installation Roppongi Color Canyon, the spatial-design tape Haru Stuck-on Design, and CD packaging design for the Japanese rock band Sotaisei Riron; the latter, Life Stripe, in which bands of color visually represent people’s daily routines. Also presented are writings by architect Tsuyoshi Tane, architect/designer Masayo Ave, and buyer/curator Yu Yamada, who offer their own perspectives on the team’s work.

Spread is a creative design team established by Haruna Yamada and Hirokazu Kobayashi. Employing color as their primary medium for creating distinctive conceptual works, the pair undertakes many projects in graphic and product design and provides art direction and design for major exhibitions; a primary emphasis is striving to inspire positive social change. Past honors include Red Dot Design Awards, an iF Design Award, D&AD Awards, German Design Awards, Pentawards, Design for Asia Awards, Good Design Awards, a Japan Package Design Award, and Yomiuri Advertising Awards.