Do you know Japan and its ancestral customs, this country of the rising sun which for several decades remained totally isolated from the rest of the world, in the most perfect autarky, preserving its heritage, its culture, its rites, and its customs?
Then came the Americans, again and again, forcing the Japanese empire to open its ports and doors to the world's other markets and trade. That was in 1854, under the command of naval officer Matthew Perry.
Since then, this archipelago at the end of the world has fascinated, intrigued, and inspired entire generations.
Among its impressive traditions are the Kamon (also known as Mondokoro or Mon).
Often compared to the European coats of arms of noble and warrior families,
Kamons have a much wider application and are still abundantly present in all strata of society in the 21st century. The most popular is the Chrysanthemum (etymologically "the golden flower"),
used as the official seal of Japan or the imperial seal (first page of Japanese passports). But there are thousands of them (some say there are more than 20,000), of all kinds, always represented in a circular shape, graphically very simple, with no effect of thickness or volume, mostly monochromatic and always geometrically impeccable.
Unfortunately, it's hard to date their origins, but traces of them can be found as far back as the 5-6th centuries. Initially used mainly by wealthy families, they quickly became a symbol of war by the Samurai, making it easy to recognize one's clan in a battle zone. They were brandished on banners and flags (Hatamaku), but also on tombs, furniture, and boats, particularly by the samurai (or Buke) and the Kuge (Japanese nobility).
Their use is more or less free, with the exception of the imperial emblem and certain noble families today, which can create friction depending on how they are used. But generally speaking, there are no real prohibitions or official rules on their use (which is surprising for a country like Japan, where most traditions are highly regulated and particularly well structured).
Later, unlike the European coats of arms, which were exclusively reserved for aristocrats, their use was extended to the entire population, and Kamons were found on a variety of products, including Manmaku, the traditional curtains used in front of Japanese shop entrance, and on kimonos and yukata (of which there are usually 1, 3 or 5, one being mostly on the chest), used by farmers, merchants, Rakugo (storytellers, very famous in Japan) and even worn by Yujo (prostitutes - whose status is very different in Japan from that in Western countries, but we'll come back to that in another article).
At the end of the Edo period, as Japan was forced to reopen to the world, in the second half of the 19th century, the world discovered the Nippon Empire and the Kamon became one of the symbols of art nouveau in Europe, representing the images of Japonism.
Their aesthetic is famous abroad, due to their symbolic design, a simplified structure often used in the world of design. The best known of these are the Mitsubishi logo and, more surprisingly, the Luis Vuitton emblem,
but if we go further and look at the graphic trends of the last 5 years, we see that the notion of Flat Design (totally uncluttered, flattened, with no thick, multi-dimensional effect, often monochromatic and very often represented in a shape that would easily fit in a round or square shape. We can easily find some connections or inspirations, don’t you think?
The examples are more than impressive: in the car industry, for example, all the brands have remove all three-dimensional aspect of their identity, almost all of them limit themselves to one colour (often black), and their entire visual identity is based on the same principle.
You could see this as being inspired by the big computer brands, such as Apple,
but when you look at the construction of the Kamons, their use, and their representations, the similarities are uncanny. An ancestral Japanese creation could well be one of the origins of 21st century logo graphic design. The round and square shapes, for example, are largely the result of the size limitations imposed on us by computer tools (web/mobile application logos, stickers, and other profile images, among others, are always round or square),
but you have to admit that it's amusing to see just how far ahead Japanese art was in terms of creativity and, more impressively, longevity. Imagine if we could find the coats of arms of our ancestors on our everyday objects? on shop fronts or on our clothes? There are indeed a few traces here and there (big schools/universities, bottle of gin or ketchup, and other products from the British Empire) but it's all very modest compared to these magnificent and very inspiring Kamons.
is it a pure coincidence? or Are creative to lazy to create more elaborate design? Or is it precisely more challenging to create something very simple? Let us know what you think andt in the meantime, thank you for reading this article, I hope you found it useful or at least interesting, and if you have any questions or comments, please don't hesitate to leave a message, see you soon!
