Kôga Hirano

After graduating from Musashino Art University, Koga Hirano worked as a designer at the department store Takashimaya and became a freelance designer. As a New Wave graphic designer in the 1960s, he designed many posters and book jackets. Although Hirano moved freely between graphic styles, his signature letterforms have a distinct pictographic quality that carry throughout his oeuvre. The posters Hirano created from 1968-1982 for the Black Tent theatre, an experimental theatre company, are considered important visual representations of Japanese underground culture of the time.