BACKGROUND
Arata Maruyama is a designer and the founder of the visual communication design studio &Form, a respected design firm based in Tokyo, Japan.
Arata was born in Japan in 1978 and moved to Treviso, Italy in 2001 to be a researcher at Fabrica. He then enrolled in Central Saint Martins College of Art & Design to study under typographer Phil Baines, and received a BA degree (Hons) in Graphic Communication Design. Following graduation in 2004, he joined Hans Dieter Reichert Design where he worked closely with the Phaidon Press account.
In 2006, Arata moved to southern Switzerland to work as art director of the m.a.x. museo, part of a major culture facility in the city of Chiasso. During the next five years, he was engaged in the curating, planning and designing of numerous exhibitions and their promotional materials in Switzerland and overseas. He established &Form, a design studio, in 2012, and a separate global design platform called Form in 2020, both in Japan.
Arata’s work has been recognized by notable awards such as the Type Directors Club of NY for Typographic Excellence (2010), the First Prize from the Premio Mobius of Switzerland, and has been selected Finalist for the Lahti Poster Biennale (2011).
Arata has also served as a part-time lecturer at Keio University SFC since 2023, and was International Business Advisor, SME for the Japanese Ministry of Economy from 2012 to 2018, and was as chairman of the judging committee for the British D&AD “Typography” category.