Analog Influence

Slowly and methodically, narrow lines of wood are chiselled from a block, revealing characters and illustrations as the remnants fall away. One misstep and the hours-long process must begin anew. Once an image is carved to standard, it’s rolled with ink and pressed onto a page, the carved sections reserving blank space. Woodblock printing was invented in Japan in the 12th century, but Victoria-based, Japanese-born graphic designer Rio Kaneki has adapted the medium for his timeless logo and brand designs that merge traditional Japanese imagery with Western skate, punk rock and tattoo art.

In 2021, the owners of Fernwood Coffee Company, a local roastery and café, asked him to create a linoleum block print for the café, giving him creative freedom save for a few details. Kaneki hand-carved an intricate illustration of Pharaoh’s Horses, infamous in tattoo lore, incorporating a cup of coffee, botanicals, the company’s name and kanji, Japanese writing adapted from Chinese characters, that translate to “fine coffee roastery,” “family” and “local.”

It took three attempts to carve out the bold lines and typography reminiscent of a vintage sign, and the third and final block took more than 20 hours to carve. “It’s such a physical, analog process—I don’t want it to look a hundred percent perfect,” Kaneki says. Then it came time to put the design to paper. “I like the idea of having a little bit of ink rejection; it makes the block print much more unique,” he says, adding that perfection, in this medium, is near impossible anyway.

“You can control how much pressure you use, but at the end of the day, it’s almost just luck.”

Kaneki, never straying too far from the skate community he credits for his success (he’s created designs for Goodnews Skateshop in Victoria and others), has recently leaned into an interest in Japanese textiles, releasing a line of patterned fabrics in collaboration with The Sewing Club. The design echoes traditional American tattoo style—Japanese-influenced in itself—in its bold lines and limited colour palette and is available in four colourways. While Kaneki’s work is painted mural-size, hung in businesses, printed on apparel and tattooed, across the West Coast and beyond, the Fernwood block-print commission is what shifted the former screen printer’s independent graphic design career.

“The Fernwood piece was kind of a game changer, and that was the very first design where I incorporated the kanji,” Kaneki says.

“It ended up like a poster; all their information is on there. It’s a functioning object rather than just a framed piece of art on the wall.” The function of a piece is a priority for Kaneki, and he wants his work to be usable or wearable, in a nod to the designed items he was drawn to growing up: packaging labels, skateboard magazines, shoes and album covers.

Kaneki hails from Yaizu, Japan, and started skateboarding as a teenager. He remembers flipping through issues of Thrasher Magazine and Transworld Skateboarding, which weren’t distributed in the country. “They came so sporadically; we were all itching for those things to come out,” he says. They weren’t translated into Japanese, yet the bold visuals drew him in. Album covers were the same. Kaneki was struck by the impact of U.S. band Black Flag’s logo: four staggered vertical black bars. “It was so distinctive and almost shocking,” he says.

After Kaneki moved to Tokyo at 17, the owner of a local skate shop told him about a screen-printing gig nearby. He got the job, and when the company’s designer left, Kaneki thought to himself, “I’m going to be that person” and learned how to work with the design software. “YouTube wasn’t the same back then; there weren’t tutorials. I think I bought hard-copy instructions from eBay.” A few years and learn-as-he-went design gigs later, he moved to Victoria.

Using the Yellow Pages as his database, Kaneki made a list of 13 screen printers in B.C.’s capital and dropped off resumés at each. He was brushed off by most; his English was limited at the time, but he got one positive response that day—he was pretty sure—from the owner of Mega Screen Productions. “He said something like ‘Come back on Wednesday’ and ‘Give me a shot,’” Kaneki says, reminiscing. “I didn’t know what that meant. I went home, and my old roommate said, ‘He’s going to give you a job, man, congratulations.’” Kaneki worked at his craft through mentorship at the print shop, launched a clothing company and collaborated with local skate and surf brands.

Once Kaneki’s block prints gained traction, he got a message from Nike requesting a collaboration. Kaneki designed graphics for Nike Skateboarding’s 2024 spring line of apparel, which featured a block-printed illustration of a dragon passing through the Nike logo, centred in an ornamental frame and surrounded by cherry blossoms. At their design meeting, he shared a story with the Nike team. In the 1980s, Kaneki was spending time with an uncle, who was home in Japan from recent travels. He wore a pair of Nike Air Max shoes with a fluorescent pink swoosh on the side. Kaneki recognized the logo from the (then) recent release Back to the Future. “I was so stoked.” That moment, Kaneki says, he had decided he wanted to design shoes one day, which was the first time he thought specifically about the design process. “It all kind of came full circle, and I got to inform my uncle that I got a job with Nike before he passed away.”