Yuzen designer Kondo-san evaluating a new pattern for 2004

Kondo san's yuzen studio is located in central Kyoto in the house that he and his 6 brothers and sister's grew up in. He has lived in Kyoto, the center of Japanese culture, for almost all of his 59 years, and has been working with traditional Japanese paper for 34 of them.

Passion for paper
His love of paper started in 1969 when Kondo san, a recent graduate of a Kyoto university, found that his job as a salesperson at a trading company in Tokyo wasn't what he aspired to do. After only 6 months he quit, something almost unheard of at a time in Japan when employment in the same company generally lasted a lifetime. "I hated making sales calls and would stand outside a place, too afraid to go in” he confesses. “I wanted to work with my hands.”

Brother's inc.
Kondo san happily accepted an invitation to work with his brother, a self-taught maker of katazome paper, a type of yuzen in which the design is hand carved into paper that is 3 millimeters thick. Although they enjoyed this work immensely, producing katazome became too time consuming and costly. In addition, market demand had changed as yuzen became more popular. Although similar in idea to katazome, yuzen patterns have up to 7 colors because they can be applied at a much faster rate through the process of silk screening. It is for these reasons that in 1975, the two brothers began to make yuzen.

Creating his own pattern designs
Kondo san worked with his brother for another six years before opening his own yuzen business. For the first two years, he designed and drew his patterns for himself, producing about 10 new designs a year. Then, as his business took off, he began to work with a designer who helps put his new ideas into reality at a faster pace.

Yuzen paper designed by Kondo-san

	Some of Kondo san's yuzen sold by Kamibashi
	Some designs...
	...are inspired by Japanese lacquer ware...
	...like this moon flower design

Each color requires a separate printing screen

Kondo san’s ideas for designs come from traditional Japanese patterns that can be found on items such as kimonos and lacquer ware, although he also has a range of more 'modern' patterns as well. “I am constantly thinking about my next patterns and looking through books to get ideas,” he says. Once he has a firm idea in mind, Kondo san makes a preliminary design and explains it to his designer. The designer then finishes it according to Kondo san’s specifications, at which point they work together to edit it until it becomes a finished work. Finally, the design is sent to a silk screen manufacturer, where one screen is produced for each color that will be used during the printing process.

Careful selection of color and pattern style make all the difference

Challenge of color selection
The hardest part of the creation process is, “determining the colors which I imagine should be used with each pattern,” he says. The complicated nature of this process is readily understood when you see that each new design he makes is then printed using 8 different color combinations.

Silk screen printing applies the ink though a stencil

Implementation in silk screen
After choosing the different color combinations that he thinks will work well together, Kondo san and his silkscreen technician do a test run. This involves dividing one piece of yuzen-sized paper (24” x 36”) into 8 equal parts and then applying one of the eight different color combinations to each section. The results are then critiqued and changes are made until finally, after 2-3 days, Kondo san is satisfied with the results and the new yuzen is ready to go.

Attention to the detail
When asked what kinds of things can go wrong when making yuzen, he says that it’s possible for the design and the ink to be printed out of line during the silk screening phase. For this reason, he carefully looks through each finished sheet in the run to make sure that it is perfect. When he finds one that’s even a touch off, he takes it out. “There may be one or two in each run that don’t meet my standards,” he says, adding that there have also been times when an order’s entire printing had to be redone. “There is always the possibility that something will go wrong because it’s not machine made,” he says. In addition to human error, the weather can affect the paper if it is too humid.

Kicks of a yuzen designer
Kondo san says that the best part of the job is when, “a pattern that I really love becomes a big seller,” and that there is nothing about the job that he doesn’t like. He is thankful that even though his business has decreased due to the downturn in the Japanese economy over the past decade, he can still make a living doing what he loves.

Growing clientel for yuzen
In addition to Kamibashi, Kondo san’s customers can be divided into three groups: producers of tea containers that are covered in yuzen, producers of boxes that contain Japanese sweets, and craft and paper shops. As for the foreign market, he is happy that there is such an interest in yuzen outside of Japan, and he hopes that the number of people who enjoy these papers will continue to grow. When asked if there is anything else he would like people outside of Japan to know about him or his yuzen, he smiles and says, “Enjoy my papers!”