The Elements of Japanese Design is a library of traditional Japanese design motifs in the form of more than 2,700 family crests (mon) compiled and drawn by a Kyoto publisher and bookseller in the twentieth century, and selected and interpreted by John Dower, a leading American scholar in Japan.

First used for identification on the battlefield beginning in the twelfth century, mon developed into symbols of family pride and fortune and quintessential expressions of the Japanese design sensibility-especially in their economy of means, exquisite detailing, and boldness of composition.

184 Pages