Inspire Me

On the web

Japanese Matchbox labels
More than a hundred colourful retro matchbox featuring illustrations on extremely various themes: food, places, Japanese culture, advertisements for cigarettes and bars, etc. Plenty of gems here.

Japanese postage stamps
This Flickr set is dedicated to Japanese stamps in general but feature many old style stamps with an exotic, vintage flavour.

Exotic Ephemera
This Flickr group gathers non-western paper prints — small illustrations, prints, posters, ads, packagings, etc. Though this group doesn't specifically targets Asian products, China is widely represented in the set.

Firecracker labels
Firecrackers are a Chinese specialty, and they are used throughout Asia during celebrations. In Japan for example, Firecrackers are used to repel evil spirits on New Year's eve. This group gathers 250 colourful firecrackers illustrations.

East Asia ads & Propaganda
This Flickr set is a wonderful collection of 145 Chinese and Japanese advertisement and propaganda posters. They give a very interesting overview of the changes that occur in Chinese and Japanese societies over the XXth century.

Maopost
This website offers a huge collection of Maoist propaganda posters. The illustrations are divided in several categories, which is quite convenient. If you like the posters, there's a Mac OS X dashboard widget that displays a new poster everyday with a translation of the Chinese text (available in English and in French).

Books

Made in China and Made in Japan
These two books are by Reed Darmon. I bought the first one and regularly find myself browsing this splendid collection of advertisement and packaging illustrations. One thing I like about them is that there is sometimes no obvious connection between the product and the subject that is reprensented. These books have a convenient small format and the quality of the reproduction is excellent. I am about to order Made in Japan too and I'll certainly tell you more about this book when I have received it.

Chinese propaganda posters
I love Taschen collection books. This one is a collection of propaganda artworks gathered by photographer Michael Wolf. I also recommend you Japanese beauties, a collection of photographs, ads and illustration featuring Japanese women throughout the XXth century (and before if I remember well, but my copy is out of reach right now).

Hong Kong Apothecary
Hong Kong Apothecary: a visual history of Chinese medicine packaging is a collection of vintage traditional medicine packagings — powders, pills, ointments, oils, etc. Beyond the obvious graphical interest, these illustrations give a special insight into private aspects of the way of life in Hong Kong at that time.