John Dower first encountered Japanese family crests while working as an editor and book designer. His interest in them led him to devote several years to collecting and classifying them.
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 early in the twentieth century, and selected and interpreted by John Dower, a leading American...