page_title: Juzo Takaoka
section_title: Personal history and profile
hierarchical_section_title: Juzo Takaoka / Personal history and profile
caption_attribution_description: English: Juzo Takaoka’s business card set in the American Uncial typeface
context_page_description: Juzo Takaoka was a Japanese letterpress printer specializing in Western typesetting. He was advisor to the Kazui Press Limited, a letterpress company in Tokyo, Japan, and a fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, UK.
context_section_description: Juzo Takaoka was born in Tokyo in 1921. His father was a traditional Japanese bookbinder. Never caring much about money, his father was always poor, as were most craftspersons in those days. He paid little attention to his son's education.
  After finishing elementary school, Takaoka was sent by his father to apprentice at a printing company. At the company, he was often treated badly by his seniors. They foisted on him all the things they did not want to do. During his second apprenticeship, he was again ill-treated by his seniors. They had him distribute types in the Latin alphabet to their type cases after printing. They could not read the alphabet, and the distribution of types was tedious for them. Takaoka could not read the alphabet either, but the task turned out to be a blessing in disguise. He soon realized the advantage of handling the Latin alphabet: it basically has only 26 characters whereas Japanese has thousands. Before he knew it, Takaoka was completely captivated by Western typefaces.
  In 1937, Takaoka read a short magazine article that would change his life. It was about the poor standard of Western typography in Japan and was written by Yoshimitsu Inouye (also known as Kazui Inoue), Takaoka's future teacher and mentor. Inouye, a lover of Western letterpress printing, worked in London between 1934 and 1939 as representative of major Japanese shipping company Nippon Yusen. While overseas, he developed expertise in Western typography and acquired a small printing press and types, enough to become an amateur printer. In January 1937, Inouye contributed the article to Japan's leading printing magazine, Insatsu Zasshi. His article had a strong impact on Japanese progressive printers and compositors of the time, inspiring them to form the Study Group on Western Typography so that they could learn directly from Inouye. Takaoka joined this group and was its youngest member. On February 17, 1940, the Study Group held its first meeting.
  Enthralled by Inouye's lectures, Takaoka desperately wanted to become Inouye's apprentice. He persistently went to his home with work samples in hand to seek his permission. Though he was repeatedly turned away, Takaoka was finally accepted as Inouye's disciple in 1940 thanks to the mediation of Inouye's wife, Kimiko. He was the only member of the Study Group to be accepted as an apprentice.
  With high aspirations, Takaoka started going to the Kazui Press, Inouye's private press based at his home in Harajuku, Tokyo. Even after Takaoka had gone several times, though, Inouye spoke not a word about typography. Instead, he told Takaoka about English towns and people in London. One day Takaoka gently asked Inouye to give him practical instruction on typography. Inouye scolded Takaoka, saying, “The instruction has already begun! Do you not see that? I am telling you about the people who will use the prints you make in Western typesetting. Without understanding their lifestyle and culture, you will not be able to meet their needs.” These words of Inouye shaped Takaoka's attitude toward letterpress work and typographic education. Under Inouye's tutelage, Takaoka mastered the principles and philosophy of Western typography and became an expert printer-typographer as well as a gentleman with social graces.
  During the apprenticeship period, Takaoka used to go to Maruzen, the most prestigious bookstore in Tokyo at that time, to look for books on Western typography, whenever he had spare time and a bit of cash. Sticking out among the properly dressed clients with his poor attire, he could not possibly have been seen as a good customer, but the head clerk of Maruzen appreciated Takaoka's genuine enthusiasm for Western typography and often kept books aside for him and even paid for some of them himself.
  In 1941, as World War II was spreading, Inouye and Takaoka were asked to cooperate in the production of Japan's war propaganda magazine Front by Tohosha, a publisher under the direct control of the Imperial Japanese Army.
  Obviously inspired by the American magazine Life, Front was reputed for its exc
caption: Juzo Takaoka's business card set in the American Uncial typeface
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