TOKYO ART BOOK FAIR (TABF) launched in 2009 as Japan’s first book fair dedicated to art publishing. Held annually, it gathers artists who produce a wide range of creative publications — art books, catalogs, artist books, and zines — alongside domestic and international publishers and galleries. We were in charge of the visual identity and signage planning.

As in previous years, the event required using environmentally conscious materials for its signage. We designed letters made from thick paper and built structures from wood offcuts collected at art universities and building material yards — pieces that were otherwise destined for disposal. This approach reduced environmental impact and ensured visual cohesion with existing wooden fixtures and booth designs in the venue.

Each thick-paper letter is standalone, and the wooden elements can be easily disassembled for reuse in new forms — even beyond the fair. This flexible design helps reduce waste by extending the materials’ lifecycle, fostering sustainability both during and after the event.

TOKYO ART BOOK FAIR 2025 at Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo

Centre Inc. was responsible for the design of TOKYO ART BOOK FAIR 2025, organized by the Tokyo Art Book Fair Executive Committee and the Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo which is operated by the Tokyo Metropolitan Foundation for History and Culture. An Art Book Fair is an exhibition where publishers, galleries, and artists who produce artist’s books, catalogues, zines, and ephemera engage directly with audiences through printed matter. Initiated by “Printed Matter,” a New York-based nonprofit group involving artists such as Sol LeWitt and Lucy Lippard, the format has since spread worldwide to museums and cultural institutions.

TOKYO ART BOOK FAIR 2025 at Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo

The rise of zines published by artists and independent presses since the 1990s represented an alternative response to the frameworks of commercial publishing premised on mass distribution and bookstore networks. They also functioned as a supplementary distribution channel amid the decline of the publishing industry. In today’s environment — where e-commerce allows anyone to publish at low cost and circulate works globally through social media and online shops — this convenience paradoxically fuels a “desire for materiality.”
The material qualities and autonomy of books as objects stimulate rarity and collecting impulses, while the tactile experience of paper, the smell of ink, and the rhythm of turning pages create values irreducible to digital information. Art Book Fairs foreground the significance of print media, functioning not simply as sites of consumption but as venues for encounters with objects and for active participation.

TOKYO ART BOOK FAIR 2025 at Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo

Since the 2015 renewal of TOKYO ART BOOK FAIR, centre Inc. has continued to design its visual identity, demonstrating the fair’s role as a point of contact between global information flows and local cultural practices, and as a site for new forms of publicness. At the core of the identity is the notion that individuals create collectivity through alternative circuits to existing systems, and that this cultural space is built upon such practices. In designing the logo and formulating the typographies, monumental graphics have been deliberately avoided in favor of compositions that combine historically refined typefaces, allowing the identity to serve as a platform for experimentation and individual expression.

TOKYO ART BOOK FAIR 2016, TOKYO ART BOOK FAIR 2023 – Flyer, Invitation, DM

Signage design process – Atelier (centre Inc.)

At the same time, the imagery for each annual edition remains variable while ensuring a degree of consistency, with all production grounded in the authorship of its makers. Works are shaped by fundamental acts inherent to print — layering, folding, bending, turning — and designers are positioned as members of the community. For the 2025 signage plan, the supporting material consisted of offcuts of wood once destined for disposal. By recombining various wood species sourced from different places with the museum’s existing signage, the project re-evaluated the latent properties of wood while critically addressing issues of appropriate waste management and deinstallation within exhibition-making. In doing so, it highlighted both the essential roles design plays in our environment and the responsibility to envision beyond present boundaries.

Signage design process – Atelier (centre Inc.)

TOKYO ART BOOK FAIR 2025 at Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo

Addendum

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TOKYO ART BOOK FAIR 2025

Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo

Signage design process

Atelier (centre Inc.)