War and Advertising
During graduate school, I spent a period collecting and researching textbooks. Children's textbooks shaped by policy. Elementary education textbooks that contained the war, only to be denigrated overnight after defeat. I remained interested in these textbooks for a while after graduation, and then my department head, Professor Oyobe, introduced me to a book called "War and Advertising."
Ayao Yamana (山名文夫) of Shiseido's design department and Seiichiro Arai (新井静一郎), who worked in the propaganda department of Morinaga Confectionery, appear in the book. Both are real people. The era was militaristic, and posters urging cooperation in the war were necessary. Regardless of their design ideologies, their collaboration with the Cabinet Intelligence Bureau vividly captures the atmosphere of the time. Two of Yamana's works are introduced early in the book. The comparison between the two works, one exuding a feminine Shiseido-style poster and the other amplifying the propaganda nature of the work, provides a sense of the overall tone of the book. This book is clearly a design book, not a history book.
