Women in Design:
Tomoko Miho
Mastery of Swiss Modernism involves the ability to balance form, color type and spatial relationships into perfect harmony all while retaining a sense of meaning. Amongst the vast sea of famous men who have mastered this style is Tomoko Miho.
Born in 1931, Miho was a Japanese-American designer from Los Angeles. Her parents were florists but lost their business after the family was sent to an internment camp after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, along with many American citizens of Japanese descent. In an impressive display of resilience, she was still able to attend Art Center and spent most of her career working for Herman Miller where she was instrumental in defining their catalogs and print work.
Miho’s body of work fully embraces the Swiss Style but is also influenced by Japanese concepts of design such as Shakkei landscape design. She is probably most famous for her Chicago architecture poster in which she used a pre-digital technique of layering silver paper in order to create repetition and a sense of movement reminiscent of Chicago’s architectural spirit. It is part of the permanent collection at the MOMA.
Check out the other Women in Design features in our series: Bobby Solomon and Zuzana Licko.
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