Hosoya Gan (b. 1935)

Hosoya Gan is a Japanese graphic designer best known for his ads, posters, and use of dramatic photography. Throughout his tenure at Light Publicity, an advertising company he ultimately managed as president, Hosoya Gan earned several prestigious awards. He is actively involved in the design community as a member of JAGDA, president of the Tokyo ADC, and serving on the Mainichi Industrial Design Award jury committee.

Hosoya Gan was born in Sagamihara, a city in Kanagawa Prefecture, in 1935 and graduated from Kanagawa Technical High School’s Department of Industrial Arts and Design in 1954. In the same year, he started working in the art department of Light Publicity, a photography-focused advertising firm that had been founded a few years earlier in 1951.

He joined a young team that included Akiyama Shō, considered one of Japan’s foremost copywriters. Hosoya worked on advertisements and corporate identity projects for clients such as Bridgestone, Yamaha Motor, Hitachi, and Sapporo Beer.

The Japan Advertising Artists Club (JAAC) recognized Hosoya’s talents with awards for his posters for the Oscar Peterson Quartet in 1955 and Sōfū Teshigahara’s exhibition in 1956, when he was just twenty years old. Two years later, in 1959, he received an award from the Tokyo Art Directors Club for the first in a series of commercials for Yamaha Motor, which would become one of his major customers. Hosoya’s work for corporate clients became known for its dramatic use of photography, and he won the Mainichi Industrial Design Prize in 1963 for his innovative approach to applying photography to advertising design.

He was one of the young graphic artists invited to participate in the renowned “Persona” exhibition in 1965, for which he also designed the poster and catalog.

Hosoya remained at Light Publicity throughout his career and became its president in 1975.

Hosoya’s graphic design won four Tokyo Art Directors Club awards (1971, 1978, 1984, and 1988), the Asahi Advertising Award (1988), and JAAC’s Amana Award (1990). Among his many honors are the Medal with Purple Ribbon in 2001 and the Order of the Rising Sun in 2014.

He is a Japan Graphic Designers Association (JAGDA) member, president of the Tokyo Art Directors Club, and serves on the Mainichi Industrial Design Award jury committee.