Tomoko Miho (September 2, 1931 - February 10, 2012) was a Japanese-American

graphic designer A graphic designer is a professional within the graphic design and graphic arts industry who assembles together images, typography, or motion graphics to create a piece of design. A graphic designer creates the graphics primarily for published, ...

and recipient of the 1993

AIGA Medal Following is a list of AIGA medalists who have been awarded the American Institute of Graphic Arts medal. On its website, AIGA says "The medal of the AIGA, the most distinguished in the field, is awarded to individuals in recognition of their exc ...

. She is known for her understanding of the relationship between space and object.

Biography

Tomoko Miho (née Kawakami) was born in Los Angeles in 1931 and spent her early days in the Gila River War Relocation Center in Arizona. She attended the

Minneapolis School of Art The Minneapolis College of Art and Design (MCAD) is a private college specializing in the visual arts and located in Minneapolis, Minnesota. MCAD currently enrolls approximately 800 students. MCAD is one of just a few major art schools to offer ...

and the Art Center School in Los Angeles where she earned a degree in industrial design. She and her husband and fellow designer, James Miho, went traveling through Europe where she met

Giovanni Pintori Giovanni Pintori (14 July 1912 - 15 November 1999) was an Italian graphic designer known mostly for his advertising work with Olivetti. He is known for his use of geometric shapes and minimalist style in his advertising posters, specifically his po ...

(director of

Olivetti Olivetti S.p.A. is an Italian manufacturer of computers, tablets, smartphones, printers and other such business products as calculators and fax machines. Headquartered in Ivrea, in the Metropolitan City of Turin, the company has been part of ...

Hans Erni Hans Erni (February 21, 1909 – March 21, 2015) was a Swiss graphic designer, painter, illustrator, engraver and sculptor. Born in Lucerne, the third of eight siblings, to a cabin cruiser engineer, he studied art at the Académie Julian in Par ...

, and

Herbert Leupin Herbert Leupin (20 December 1916, in Beinwil am See – 21 September 1999, in Basel) was a Swiss people, Swiss graphic designer known primarily for his poster art. Life and work From 1931 until 1934, Leupin attended the Kunstgewerbeschule in Base ...

, and visited the renowned Ulm School of Design. After her return to the United States, she worked at George Nelson Associates, Inc. under Creative Director

Irving Harper Irving Harper (July 14, 1916 – August 4, 2015) was an American industrial designer.
, metropolismag. ...

and became his successor. She worked for Herman Miller furniture and the Center for Advanced Research in Design (for Container Corporation of America and Atlantic Richfield Company). In the 1980s she founded her own studio, Tomoko Miho & Co. Her clients included

MoMA Moma may refer to: People * Moma Clarke (1869–1958), British journalist * Moma Marković (1912–1992), Serbian politician * Momčilo Rajin (born 1954), Serbian art and music critic, theorist and historian, artist and publisher Places ; Ang ...

Smithsonian Institution The Smithsonian Institution ( ), or simply the Smithsonian, is a group of museums and education and research centers, the largest such complex in the world, created by the U.S. government "for the increase and diffusion of knowledge". Founded ...

National Air and Space Museum The National Air and Space Museum of the Smithsonian Institution, also called the Air and Space Museum, is a museum in Washington, D.C., in the United States. Established in 1946 as the National Air Museum, it opened its main building on the Nat ...

, Isamu Noguchi Foundation, Goulandris Museum of Cycladic Art in Athens, Willem de Kooning Foundation, Kodansha International, and

Aveda Aveda Corporation ( ) is an American cosmetics company founded by Horst Rechelbacher, now owned by Estée Lauder Companies, and headquartered in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Aveda manufactures skin and body care, cosmetics, perfume (internally call ...

.Breuer, Gerda, Meer, Julia (ed): ''Women in Graphic Design'', p. 515, Jovis, Berlin 2012, Biography Tomoko Miho. Miho is noted for her contribution in the form of architectural posters in New York and Chicago. Today, they are in the

Museum of Modern Art The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is an art museum located in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, on 53rd Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues. It plays a major role in developing and collecting modern art, and is often identified as one of ...

, at the

Library of Congress The Library of Congress (LOC) is the research library that officially serves the United States Congress and is the ''de facto'' national library of the United States. It is the oldest federal cultural institution in the country. The library is ...

, and at Cooper Hewitt, and were published in design magazines like Novum ''Gebrauchsgraphik''. Her work is strongly influenced by Swiss international typographic style. Her architecturally infused works were honored with numerous prizes and have been featured in international exhibitions.

Biography

References

Further reading