Appropriation, Pakuri, and the First Tokyo 2020 Olympic Logo Design

There are a number of attributes, aesthetics, and processes that define graphic design today. These include complexity, contradiction, being dystopian or non-utopian in nature, using juxtaposition, recontextualization, layering, interaction between text and imagery, hybridity, and appropriation.¹ Of all of these constituent parts of contemporary graphic design, perhaps the most contested, yet widely practiced is appropriation. In graphic design, appropriation, the act of adopting visual styles or motifs created by others without permission, is so widespread that it often goes unnoticed. Yet, there are different forms of appropriation—for example, there is appropriation as an act of pastiche, wherein the audience of a work finds amusement or pleasure when the proverbial "veil" of reference is lifted. (This form of appropriation was utilized as an operational methodology by many postmodern graphic designers in the 1990s.) Conversely, there is also appropriation as an act of plagiarism, wherein the original source material or reference is not acknowledged and leads to negative feelings within audiences when discovered.

In the contemporary moment, we are inundated with appropriation across wide swaths of culture—for instance, the fashion brand Supreme's appropriation of the typeface choice, composition, and color palette for their corporate identity taken from the artist Barbara Kruger.² Designers who employ appropriation as regular methodology have made news headlines, notably Shepard Fairey and his use of Associated Press photographer Mannie Garcia's imagery for the 2008 Barack Obama "Hope" election campaign poster. The AP sued for copyright violation and the case against Fairey was settled out of court in 2011.³

Appropriation is known as pakuri in Japanese, described by the writer W. David Marx as "the use of creative elements from someone else in a similar context as the original without self-acknowledgment of the borrowing."⁴ Marx has written widely about pakuri—from its implications in the musical genre Shibuya-kei to pakuri-in-action in the visual art and design worlds. Pakuri's etymology lies in the verb pakuru,⁵ meaning to filch, to crib, or to steal, and there have been multiple public cases of pakuri that have caught national attention in Japan over the past few decades. Perhaps the most blatant was the cooptation of incredibly similar visual themes originally painted by the artist Aida Makoto in his 1991 painting A Road Between Rice Fields (Azemichi) being reproduced as Photoshopped music packaging by late designer Noda Nagi in 2004.⁶ Common usage of the term pakuri disavows acknowledgement of informing source material that is sampled, remixed, or just deployed wholesale. Linguistically, pakuri is not used to refer to appropriation wherein glorification of the historical source material is employed as a methodology. Yet, appropriation as a postmodern operational methodology in fact often acknowledges and glorifies absorption of the historic source material. Appropriation, therefore, is almost always political due to its strategy of absorption and adoption of preexisting aesthetics. Whether the much-publicized fiasco surrounding the design of the initial official logos for the Tokyo 2020 Olympic and Paralympic Games represents yet another instance of pakuri is seed for lively debate.

Sano Kenjirō's Design in Context

The chosen design for the 2020 Olympic emblem was the result of a private competition solicited by the Japanese Olympic Emblem Committee (fig. 6.1). The competition was comprised of 104 entries solicited from a variety of award-winning designers in Japan. Seemingly of importance is that the logo competition participants had won prior awards for graphic design both nationally and internationally—participants included lauded designers such as Hara Kenya and Kasai Kaoru, as well as the winning designer, Sano Kenjirō. Sano has a long career in design, having previously worked at advertising juggernaut Hakuhodo before starting his own firm, Mr. Design, in 2008. Sano's studio has won multiple awards, including D&AD Pencils, Cannes Lions, and many domestic awards including the 17th Yusaku Kamekura Design Award, named after the designer of the 1964 Olympic logo. The webpage for the resultant exhibition celebrating Sano's award quotes Sano as saying:

6.1.

Designer Sano Kenjirō during a press conference...