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The American graphic designer of Japanese origin (Los Angeles, 1931 – New York, 2012) managed in her works to combine refined minimalism with a modernism that remains timeless. She is also known for her interest in the relationship between space and objects.
In her posters, books, catalogues, logos, signs, and showrooms, the guiding lines of her talent always reveal a precise balance between images and information, between concepts and details.
After spending her early years with her family in an internment camp in Arizona – “To recover, we had to excel,” she would say – and after graduating in industrial design from the Art Center School in Los Angeles, she moved to Philadelphia to join her husband James Miho, and later to Michigan, where she was hired as a packaging designer by Harley Earl Associates Inc.
In the early 1960s, she and James embarked on a six-month tour of Europe – traveling extensively in their new silver Porsche – which marked the beginning of a long and intense two-decade “design collaboration”: the Mihos.
Europe at the time offered a creative fervor that captivated the two artists, and the Swiss approach to graphic design, with its new sans serif typefaces, became a design language that was immediately absorbed into American culture. The new typefaces became symbols of a democratic, international, and nonpartisan essence. As Norwegian designer Martin Pedersen recalled: “Back then, to win a design award, all you had to do was use Helvetica.”
During their European tour, they met many international artists: in Switzerland, the painter and sculptor Hans Erni; in Basel, artist and designer Herbert Leupin; in Milan, Giovanni Pintori, art director at Olivetti; in Germany, they visited the Hochschule für Gestaltung in Ulm, the famous design school, and met graphic designer Tomás Gonda; in Finland, they encountered Armi Ratia, creator of the Marimekko brand image, and industrial designer Tapio Wirkkala.
“Unite space and substance” was how Tomoko defined her future work after this long journey filled with ideas and inspiration.
Between the late 1960s and early 1970s, she worked on several communication projects for Herman Miller, the furniture and office design company. She later worked for a couple of years at the Chicago-based CARD office, before opening a New York branch.
In the 1980s, as founder and director of Tomoko Miho Co., she created artworks and installations for Herman Miller showrooms in New York, Long Island, and Los Angeles.
Tomoko’s unique sense of space alludes to shakkei – meaning “borrowed scenery” – a traditional Japanese garden design practice where backgrounds are integrated with crisp foregrounds. But, as with the Surrealists, she also loved to play with trompe-l’œil illusions, weaving everything together with her exquisite sense of proportion.
A three-layer translucent poster for Herman Miller’s “Ethospace” office system is a striking demonstration of the shakkeiprinciple: ultrathin sheets of tracing paper, fastened with a grommet, rotate to create unexpected and surprising layouts and visions.
Her impressive list of clients includes not only Herman Miller Inc. but also Omniplan Architects; Champion International Corporation; Mellmuth, Obata & Kassabaum Inc. Architects; the Museum of Modern Art in New York; the National Endowment for the Arts; the Isamu Noguchi Foundation, Inc.; Neiman Marcus; Jack Lenor Larsen Inc., among others.
The poetics of Tomoko Miho – made of small type, brief captions, carefully balanced empty and filled spaces, harmoniously designed layouts, packaging design, and wayfinding – renders each image majestic, capturing our attention.
Imagination placed at the service of creativity, studied down to the smallest detail. Thus, a simple sheet of paper could be transformed into an infinite expanse of sky.
Tomoko Miho’s works are held at MoMA, the Library of Congress in Washington, the Cooper Hewitt Museum in New York, and have been published in numerous design magazines, as well as exhibited and awarded at international shows.
