Sadamitsu "S. Neil" Fujita ("Foo-JEE-ta") (May 16, 1921 – October 23, 2010) was an 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, ...

known for his innovative book cover and record album designs.

Early life

Born in Waimea, Hawaii, to Japanese immigrants, Fujita attended a boarding school in Honolulu, where he adopted the name Neil. He enrolled in Chouinard Art Institute, but his studies were interrupted by World War II and his forced relocation in 1942 (following the signing of

Executive Order 9066 Executive Order 9066 was a United States presidential executive order signed and issued during World War II by United States president Franklin D. Roosevelt on February 19, 1942. This order authorized the secretary of war to prescribe certain ...

), first to the Pomona Assembly Center outside Los Angeles and later to the Heart Mountain Relocation Center in Wyoming. During his confinement, he worked as the art director of the camp newspaper, the ''Heart Mountain Sentinel''. He enlisted in the United States Army on January 1, 1943, and served in an anti-tank unit with the

442nd Infantry Regiment The 442nd Infantry Regiment ( ja, 第442歩兵連隊) was an infantry regiment of the United States Army. The regiment is best known as the most decorated in U.S. military history and as a fighting unit composed almost entirely of second-gene ...

, a segregated regiment of

Japanese American are Americans of Japanese ancestry. Japanese Americans were among the three largest Asian American ethnic communities during the 20th century; but, according to the 2000 census, they have declined in number to constitute the sixth largest Asi ...

volunteers and draftees that became the most decorated unit in the war. He was assigned to combat duty in Europe—seeing action in Italy and France, but eventually worked as a translator in the Pacific theater in Okinawa. Fujita achieved the rank of Master Sergeant. He completed his studies at Chouinard after the war on the G.I. Bill.

Career

Fujita joined a prominent Philadelphia ad agency— N. W. Ayer & Son—after completing his studies. He worked for Ayer for three years and during his tenure was awarded an Art Directors Club gold medal for his Container Company of America ad. He employed an avant-garde style and was noticed by William Golden at

Columbia Records Columbia Records is an American record label owned by Sony Music, Sony Music Entertainment, a subsidiary of Sony Corporation of America, the North American division of Japanese Conglomerate (company), conglomerate Sony. It was founded on Janua ...

. Columbia hired him in 1954 to lead the design department, building on the work of Alex Steinweiss who established the practice of custom cover art. Fujita was the first to commission painters, photographers and illustrators to create cover art for Columbia's albums. Columbia felt a particular need to keep up with the cover art of

Blue Note Records Blue Note Records is an American jazz record label owned by Universal Music Group and operated under Capitol Music Group. Established in 1939 by Alfred Lion and Max Margulis, it derived its name from the blue notes of jazz and the blues. Or ...

. While at Columbia, Fujita designed close to 50 album covers, including numerous iconic jazz covers from the period for Dave Brubeck, Miles Davis, the Jazz Messengers and Charles Mingus, among others. Fujita used his own colorful abstract paintings for the covers of Brubeck's ''

Time Out Time-out, Time Out, or timeout may refer to: Time * Time-out (sport), in various sports, a break in play, called by a team * Television timeout, a break in sporting action so that a commercial break may be taken * Timeout (computing), an enginee ...

'', Gigi Gryce's '' Modern Jazz Perspective'', and ''

Mingus Ah Um ''Mingus Ah Um'' is a studio album by American jazz musician Charles Mingus which was released in October 1959 by Columbia Records. It was his first album recorded for Columbia. The cover features a painting by S. Neil Fujita. The title is a corrup ...

.'' In 1957, Fujita left Columbia in order to broaden his portfolio. He rejoined the company a year later but left for good in 1960 to start his own firm. In 1963 he joined the public relations firm Ruder & Finn, creating a design division called Ruder, Finn & Fujita (later Fujita Design) where he embarked on a long career of book cover design. He designed the covers for ''

In Cold Blood ''In Cold Blood'' is a non-fiction novel by American author Truman Capote, first published in 1966. It details the 1959 murders of four members of the Clutter family in the small farming community of Holcomb, Kansas. Capote learned of the qua ...

'', '' The Godfather'', and '' Pigeon Feathers''. He taught design at the Philadelphia Museum College of Art, the

Pratt Institute Pratt Institute is a private university with its main campus in Brooklyn, New York (state), New York. It has a satellite campus in Manhattan and an extension campus in Utica, New York at the Munson-Williams-Proctor Arts Institute. The school was ...

, and

Parsons School of Design Parsons School of Design, known colloquially as Parsons, is a private art and design college located in the Greenwich Village neighborhood of New York City. Founded in 1896 after a group of progressive artists broke away from established Manhatt ...

. Near the time of retirement in the late 1980s, he served on the Board of Designers of the Go For Broke Monument near the Japanese American National Museum in Los Angeles.

Death

A resident of Southold, New York, Fujita died at age 89 due to complications of a

stroke A stroke is a medical condition in which poor blood flow to the brain causes cell death. There are two main types of stroke: ischemic, due to lack of blood flow, and hemorrhagic, due to bleeding. Both cause parts of the brain to stop functionin ...

on October 23, 2010, in Greenport, New York. He was survived by a younger brother, Hisao "Hy" Fujita, (also a graphic designer), three sons and six grandchildren. His wife, Aiko Tamaki, whom he met while she was also a student at Chouinard, died in 2006.

Bibliography

* ''Aim for a job in graphic design/art'' (1979)

References

* Chang, Gordon H., Mark Dean Johnson, Paul J. Karlstrom & Sharon Spain, Asian American Art, a History, 1850–1970, Stanford University Press, , pp. 314–315 * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Fujita, S. Neil 1921 births 2010 deaths American graphic designers United States Army personnel of World War II Chouinard Art Institute alumni American artists of Japanese descent Artists from Hawaii Artists from New York (state) Pratt Institute faculty Parsons School of Design faculty People from Kauai County, Hawaii People from Southold (town), New York United States Army soldiers American military personnel of Japanese descent University of the Arts (Philadelphia) faculty Japanese-American internees People from Greenport, Suffolk County, New York