Background
Sumo is a Japanese style of wrestling and Japan’s national sport. It originated in ancient times as a performance to entertain the Shinto deities. Many rituals with religious backgrounds, such as the symbolic purification of the ring with salt, are still followed today. In line with tradition, only men practice the sport professionally in Japan.
Typeface Design
Using the circle as a starting point, the typeface for sumo also incorporates other elements, including metal and gold balloons. The conflict between these two textures represents the characteristics of sumo wrestlers. Metal signifies that sumo wrestlers are powerful and heavy; on the contrary, their bodies are as soft as balloons. The use of the gold color is related to the color of the sumo arena and sumo wrestlers’ skin.
Logo Design
Based on my research, the field of sumo wrestling is a square containing a circle. Therefore, for the top view of the sumo arena, I simplified these shapes and combined them with the most representative outfit of sumo wrestlers—the mawashi. The logo for Grand Sumo answers three questions without a word: who are we? and what is our identity?
Ticket & Handbook
The ticket has two parts, a ticket with a sticker on it. The seat number is covered by a sticker at first, in order to protect people’s privacy. When people receive it, they can tear off the sticker to check their seat number and put it on their clothes as a sign of admission.
Calendar Design
A sumo events calendar for 2021 contains 12 illustrations of sumo wrestlers. The style of the illustrations maintains the previous idea, which is using a series of organized structure lines to make them three-dimensional. Six months of the year are competition months, and the rest of the months have no competitions. The use of different colors and poses of the sumo wrestlers is based on this. Sumo wrestlers strike a traditional game pose on the pages of competition months; on the contrary, they adopt a more relaxed posture on the pages without competitions, such as reading, eating, and sleeping.
Illustration
Poster Design
