"Tokyo International Sports Week ’63 (東京国際スポーツ大会) – Pre‑Olympic Games" Original Release Japanese Promotional Poster 1963, Size (B1; approx. 73 x 103cm)

This is an original Japanese B1-format poster produced in 1963 for Tokyo International Sports Week (also titled in Japanese as Tokyo International Sports Meet / Tournament: 東京国際スポーツ大会), scheduled 11–16 October as printed on the poster itself (10月11日/16日).

Executed at the height of Japan’s run‑up to the 1964 Tokyo Olympics, the event functioned as a “pre‑Olympic” proving ground—an international dress rehearsal intended to test venues, operations, and Tokyo’s readiness to host the world.

Overall, the present example is excellent for an ephemeral, early‑1960s wall poster, with strong colour and clean definition to the central mark and typographic blocks. A small tear at the upper left corner has been repaired with tape on the verso (as noted), with only minor age-consistent handling/toning evident.

Historical context

In October 1963, the Games’ organising structure actively invited overseas participation in a “Tokyo International Sports Meet (Pre‑Olympic Games),” explicitly framed as a test of competition facilities and event operations ahead of the official Olympics.

Contemporary coverage likewise described Tokyo’s International Sports Week as “a sort of rehearsal for next year’s Olympics,” capturing the atmosphere of a city preparing not only its stadiums and transport systems, but also its public image for an international audience.

The “first marketed / graphic‑design Olympics”

Tokyo 1964 is now widely regarded as a watershed in Olympic visual communication: a major design project drawing upon leading post‑war Japanese designers under the direction of design critic Masaru Katsumi, extending beyond posters into an integrated system of printed matter, signage, uniforms, and communications.

Design historians frequently point to Tokyo as the first Olympics to deploy a coherent “total design” approach—standardising colour use and typography (famously including an early major international outing for Helvetica) and setting a template later host cities would emulate.

A defining innovation was the creation of a coordinated set of pictograms for sports, venues, and amenities—developed to communicate instantly across language barriers and widely credited as the first systematically designed pictogram system at the Games.

Within that broader narrative, this 1963 Sports Week poster sits as prime “run‑up” material: graphic design used not as decoration, but as infrastructure—clarifying information, signalling internationalism, and building anticipation.

Design and production

The design credit is printed along the upper margin:

• Art direction & design: Yusaku Kamekura

• Illustration: Yoshio Itabashi

• Printed by: Toppan Printing Co., Ltd.

Graphic description

Kamekura’s modernist sensibility is immediately legible in the central emblem: a simplified, monumental figure‑form supporting a stylised laurel/branch motif, punctuated by a bold red disc and the prominent ’63 date—an abstract “mark” designed to read at distance, echoing the identity thinking that would soon define Tokyo 1964.

Around it, Itabashi’s illustrations animate the sheet with a panoramic survey of sport—boxing, athletics, cycling, weightlifting, gymnastics, fencing, swimming, rowing, sailing and more—rendered in a dynamic, high‑contrast manner that feels halfway between brush drawing and photographic stencil.

At the foot, the programme grid (with red dots across the dates 11–16) underscores the poster’s practical role: not merely celebratory, but informational—an elegant fusion of graphic art and event wayfinding.

What the poster was used for

This poster was an official public-facing promotional ephemera, used for display in civic settings (sports venues, institutions, transport hubs) and for distribution through sporting bodies and organisers to publicise dates and encourage attendance.

Condition

• Overall excellent example for its age and original purpose

• Colour blocks remain crisp and well-saturated

• Minor tear at top-left repaired with tape on verso (as described)

• Light, age-consistent surface handling/toning visible on close inspection

Please refer to the provided front and verso images, which depict the exact poster offered.

It is not a reproduction or a reprint.
Certificate of Authenticity included.