Tomoko Miho (September 2, 1931 - February 10, 2012) was a Japanese-American

graphic designer A graphic designer is a practitioner who follows the discipline of graphic design, either within companies or organizations or independently. They are professionals in design and visual communication, with their primary focus on transforming ...

and recipient of the 1993 AIGA Medal. She is known for her understanding of the relationship between space and object.

Biography

Tomoko Miho (née Kawakami) was born in Los Angeles in 1931 and spent her early days in the

Gila River War Relocation Center The Gila River War Relocation Center was an American concentration camp in Arizona, one of several built by the War Relocation Authority (WRA) during the Second World War for the incarceration of Japanese Americans from the West Coast. It was lo ...

in Arizona. She attended the Minneapolis School of Art and the Art Center School in Los Angeles where she earned a degree in industrial design. She and her husband and fellow designer, James Miho, went traveling through Europe where she met

Giovanni Pintori Giovanni Pintori (14 July 1912 – 15 November 1999) was an Italian graphic designer known mostly for his advertising work with Olivetti. He is known for his use of geometric shapes and minimalist style in his advertising posters, specifically his ...

(director of

Olivetti Olivetti S.p.A. is an Italian manufacturer of computers, tablets, smartphones, printers and other such business products as calculators and fax machines. Headquartered in Ivrea, in the Metropolitan City of Turin, the company has been owned b ...

), Hans Erni, and Herbert Leupin, and visited the renowned Ulm School of Design. After her return to the United States, she worked at George Nelson Associates, Inc. under Creative Director Irving Harper and became his successor. She worked for

Herman Miller MillerKnoll, Inc., doing business as Herman Miller, is an American company that produces office furniture, equipment, and home furnishings. Its best known designs include the Aeron chair, Noguchi table, Marshmallow sofa, Mirra chair, and t ...

furniture and the Center for Advanced Research in Design (for Container Corporation of America and Atlantic Richfield Company). In the 1980s she founded her own studio, Tomoko Miho & Co. Her clients included

MoMA The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is an art museum located in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, on 53rd Street (Manhattan), 53rd Street between Fifth Avenue, Fifth and Sixth Avenues. MoMA's collection spans the late 19th century to the present, a ...

Smithsonian Institution The Smithsonian Institution ( ), or simply the Smithsonian, is a group of museums, Education center, education and Research institute, research centers, created by the Federal government of the United States, U.S. government "for the increase a ...

National Air and Space Museum The National Air and Space Museum (NASM) of the Smithsonian Institution is a museum in Washington, D.C., in the United States, dedicated to history of aviation, human flight and space exploration. Established in 1946 as the National Air Museum, ...

, Isamu Noguchi Foundation,

Goulandris Museum of Cycladic Art The Nicholas P. Goulandris Foundation - Museum of Cycladic Art () is a museum in Athens that houses a notable collection of artifacts of Cycladic art. The museum was founded in 1986 in order to house the collection of Cycladic and Ancient Gree ...

in Athens, Willem de Kooning Foundation,

Kodansha International is a Japanese privately held publishing company headquartered in Bunkyō, Tokyo. Kodansha publishes manga magazines which include ''Nakayoshi'', ''Morning'', '' Afternoon'', ''Evening'', ''Weekly Young Magazine'', ''Weekly Shōnen Magazine'', ...

, and Aveda. Miho is noted for her contribution in the form of architectural posters in New York and Chicago. Today, they are in the

Museum of Modern Art The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is an art museum located in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, on 53rd Street (Manhattan), 53rd Street between Fifth Avenue, Fifth and Sixth Avenues. MoMA's collection spans the late 19th century to the present, a ...

, at the

Library of Congress The Library of Congress (LOC) is a research library in Washington, D.C., serving as the library and research service for the United States Congress and the ''de facto'' national library of the United States. It also administers Copyright law o ...

, and at Cooper Hewitt, and were published in design magazines like Novum ''Gebrauchsgraphik''. Her work is strongly influenced by Swiss international typographic style. Her architecturally infused works were honored with numerous prizes and have been featured in international exhibitions. In 2013, the Swedish Hall of Femmes project published a book focused on Miho, ''Hall of Femmes: Tomoko Miho''. In 2023 ''Eye'' magazine featured a full length article examining her work, "The Quiet Confidence of Tomoko Miho."Elizabeth Resnick, "The Quiet Confidence of Tomoko Miho,
Eye, 105.
Autumn 2023. Accessed 25 March 2025.

Biography

References

Further reading