Rebecca designed all of the printed materials for the Treasures from Japan in the Yale University Library exhibition at the Beinecke Library. The exhibition features examples of early printing, woodblock print publishing, artworks, and historical documents from the Japanese Manuscript Collection and Yale Association of Japan Collection.
Printed materials include an 80-page book, a postcard, and stanchion signs, as well as a large banner highlighting the Beinecke’s three current exhibitions.
Coincidentally, the book was printed on a 10-color “perfecting” Akiyama offset press manufactured in Japan. On “perfecting” presses, both sides of the paper are printed simultaneously, which significantly speeds up the printing process.
The book is oblong in format (bound on the short edge), complementing the horizontal orientation of the many scrolls featured in the exhibition.
This project presented the additional design challenge of setting the entire text in both English and Japanese, without visually prioritizing one over the other. Rebecca was excited to learn about Japanese typesetting and achieving proper spacing and alignments while using an English-language layout program.
Here are some photos of the book and banner during production.
You can see the work up in the Beinecke at the opening reception today at 5 pm.
