Japanese Car Matchbox

Japanese matchbox labels from the post-war decades occupy a particular place in the history of commercial graphic design: small, functional, printed in flat colour with limited registration, and frequently more resolved than the object they appeared on merited. This example belongs to that tradition — a turquoise ground, Japanese kanji announcing a car accessories company, a brown American-style sedan in clean profile, a white diamond logo, and telephone numbers set in red.

The palette is the point. The turquoise is vivid and specific — a colour that was particular to a certain era of Japanese offset printing. The brown of the car is earthy and warm. The red of the typography provides the counterpoint. Everything is flat; nothing is shaded. The economy is total.

This is the kind of image that reads as a found object, which is exactly how it works on a wall — as something encountered rather than selected, even when it has been very deliberately placed. The horizontal format gives it a different weight from the other prints in a collection: wide rather than tall, suited to specific kinds of wall.

Archival-quality print on paper. Selected in a single format — the scale we felt best suited the composition. Supplied unframed.

• Art print on archival-quality paper
• Selected in a single format — the scale we felt best suited the composition
• Supplied unframed
• Ready for standard frames

Archival-quality print on paper. Supplied unframed.