Practical Hand-Drawn Characters Design Book / Seigensha

The Practical Hand-Drawn Characters design book by Seigensha is the second volume in the Taisho and Showa hand-drawn character design collection reprint series. This book preserves the work of design artists who created commercial characters by hand during an era before computers, phototypesetting, or even the establishment of the words "typography" or "lettering" in Japan. Each character was drawn individually to match specific words and media such as flyers, leaflets, signs, and posters.

This complete collection reconstructs Practical Design Characters and Designs, originally published in 1926 and authored by Masahiro Anezaki. The book contains over 500 hand-drawn character designs that showcase uniqueness and strength distinct from modern typography. Graphic designer Daijiro Ohara contributes an essay exploring these rarely discussed elements of design history.