Collection of 12 Best Chiyo-ni Haiku

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COLLECTION OF 12 BEST CHIYO-NI HAIKU

This project was a part of typography course at Vilnius Design College. Combining free handmade typography and abstract illustration we had to create and design a haiku book. Thanks to our tutor famous Lithuanian designer and poster artist Pijus Burakas, we had complete freedom to choose author, style and visual language.

Fukuda Chiyo-ni (Kaga no Chiyo) (福田千代尼; 1703 - 1775) was a Japanese poet, widely regarded as one of the greatest poets of haiku. Before her time, poetry by women was often dismissed and ignored. She began writing Haiku at seven and by age seventeen she had become very popular all over Japan.

In the last decades of the 20th century Chiyo-ni has been rediscovered after Patricia Donegan & Yoshie Isibash published a book CHIYO-NI: WOMAN HAIKU MASTER and described her poetry as feminist:

"Ironically, although haiku began as a movement toward a more egalitarian poetry, it largely excluded women. <...> Today, ironically, the majority of practicing haiku poets in Japan are women. Chiyo-ni and her peers led the way: some were prominent in the haiku world, some less so, but all were dedicated to the path of poetry and to each other." (pg. 55)

DESIGN DECISIONS

When illustrating Chiyo-ni haiku, I wanted to emphasize the sophisticated and sensual style of her poetry. This led to the decision to use minimalistic style, leave a lot of free space on each page, yet make each line or spot very distinctive and live.

Blue colour has been chosen as we can find water motive in a huge number of Chiyo-ni poems. Subtle touch of silver and gold has been added to make it more feminine.

Paper:

Cover - Keaykolour 100% Recycled Particles Moonlight

Pages - Cyclus Offset

Binding:

Japanese style hand-binding with natural linen or cotton thread