In 1962 Kuriyagawa founded the Hokkaido Design Institute, the island's first design school, renting classrooms from a dressmaking college. It became the Hokkaido College of Art and Design in 1979 and still carries his name — Kuriyagawa Gakuen. He had founded and chaired the Hokkaido district of the Japan Advertising Artists Association in 1952, became a director of the Japan Graphic Designers Association in 1978, and in 1982 founded the Hokkaido Design Council as its first chairman.

In 1967, ahead of Hokkaido's centenary, the prefectural government invited designers across the island to submit a flag and emblem. More than 7,500 designs were received. The committee chose the proposal developed by Kuriyagawa and instructors of his design school, and it was promulgated on 1 May 1967 by Hokkaido Notification No. 775. The flag still flies over the prefecture, and the emblem remains the basis of the Hokkaido government's visual identity.

He designed the first poster for the Sapporo Snow Festival in 1950 — a design used for eight consecutive years — and worked for the Japanese National Railways and the prefecture's tourism bodies for three decades. His work was not confined to paper: stage curtains, murals in glass and ceramic, platform walls on two Sapporo subway lines, and Song of the Northern Country for Sapporo Station, still in the Apia concourse today.

Kuriyagawa learned to compose an image before he learned to design one. From 1924 he painted cinema signs — the vast hand-lettered boards that hung above theatre entrances in Sapporo, Otaru and Hakodate — and the work gave him free entry to the movies. He watched them constantly. The habits stayed: the long shot, the low horizon, the dramatic fall of light across a scene. Decades later, critics would describe his tourism posters as cinematic without always knowing why.

The method that followed was built on a few consistent devices:

• Extreme perspective and bird's-eye composition, to convey the scale of an island most Japanese had never seen
• Cinematic framing — long shots, and strong contrasts of light and shade
• Poster colours thickened with glue, then built up with a painting knife until the surface carried the texture of an oil painting
• Side lighting at the plate-making stage, the finished work photographed so that raking light caught the ridges of paint and carried them into the print

That last step is the one that makes his posters unusual. Most poster art of the period was designed to reproduce flatly. Kuriyagawa built a physical surface and then found a way to photograph it so the surface survived — which is why the originals in the Hokkaido collections are paintings rather than mechanical artwork, and why the prints still carry a sense of depth that flat-printed work of the same era does not.

For those of us living in Hokkaido, we can hear the footsteps of spring as we pass mid-March. The snow is still deep, the temperature is low, and the wind is cold. Of course, this is the season when we rely on stoves. There are still two months until the cherry blossoms bloom, but we can still feel spring coming. Although we cannot see it with our eyes, we know that the ground beneath the snow is starting to thaw. I think that a space has opened up between the ground and the snow, and the spring river is beginning to flow.

It still snows in April, but the snow melts rapidly. This is the time when the city is dirtiest with snow and mud. The trees are still bare, but their hard buds have already swelled and the snow has fallen only around their base. This is my favorite time of the year. I feel like looking forward to tomorrow's fun.

When I lie down in the grass smoking a cigarette, a cow comes over quietly, as if it has something to do with me. The inhabitants of this farm are the stars of my posters. It is impossible to count the number of times they have appeared. I sometimes draw fifty or sixty cows on one poster.

I close my eyes, feeling intoxicated by the smell of fresh grass, and hear the buzzing of insects around my ears. They are very small lives.

In recent years, the world has become busier and the cycle of a year seems to have become shorter. In any case, a year passes by too quickly. I don't think it's just my feeling that it's a matter of age, but I think it's because the mechanisms of social systems have gradually become computerized. It's commonly believed that people from Hokkaido are laid-back, but that may no longer be the case. However, no matter how the world changes, I would like to preserve at least a laid-back, relaxed temperament.

The mid-June, when the acacia trees lining the streets start to sprout white tassels, marks the boundary between late spring and early summer.

As usual, midsummer-like days arrive around this time, but it's too early to think that summer has arrived, as soon as the weather cools down again and the chilly days continue, making you want to turn on the heater. This is jokingly referred to as a "lilac chill." "Rairakku", or lilac in French, comes in purple and white and can be found in every home's garden, but it is a flower that suits Sapporo well.

Before the war, starting with the Sapporo Shrine festival on June 15th, police officers carrying sabres would wrap the tops of their hats in white cloth and change into white clothes, which was also one of the signs of summer.

Our garden is about 660m² and is mostly grass, with a haphazard array of trees planted around it. There are over 30 varieties of trees, including birch, apples, and cherries. Crocuses bud from under the snow and bloom one after another until autumn. Although it's a small field, peas, cucumbers, tomatoes, and other crops add freshness to our breakfast table.

Recently, there has been talk of moving to an apartment in my family. We know that will happen eventually, but when you live surrounded by all this greenery, it's hard to come to a decision so easily.

I feel more at home in the mountains and lakes. Watching a flowing river or a quiet lake soothes the soul. In Sapporo, where I live, there is a large river called the Toyohira River, which joins the Ishikari River downstream, but there is also a small river called the Sousei River that flows through the city.

When I was seven years old, my father, who had a chest disease, left the countryside and stayed in a rented house in an apple orchard on the outskirts to receive treatment. My mother and I walked about five kilometers to the city, with my sister in a stroller. On the way closer to the city, we came to the Sousei River, lined with willow trees. I still remember that summer day when the shadows of the willows were reflected on my mother's parasol. Six years later, my father passed away at the young age of 46, and my mother passed away a few years ago at the age of 90.

I once asked an acquaintance who runs a farm to give me an internship. The owner asked me to do a day's work, starting with waking up at 4 am and cleaning up cow dung. After hearing that, I never thought about it again and decided to observe from the outside.

Everything around the farm is wonderful to me. Every single cow brush and grass fork is an object of art. The brick silos, the cowsheds painted orange, the white window frames, the stains and knotholes in the boards. The cowboys in sweat-stained work clothes. The green of the poplars shining in the wind, the cumulonimbus clouds rising above the Japanese larch forest.

There is nothing that I don't love.

As the sounds of Obon drums begin to ring out in the twilight hours of the small park, children in yukatas form a circle around a lit tower and begin to dance, enjoying the evenings of summer vacation that are soon to end. As if lured by the sounds of the drums, the autumn wind sways the lanterns beside the tower and creeps up to the dancing children's arms.

After the peak season for corn, watermelons, and melons has passed, apples begin to change color. The once bustling seaside has regained its tranquility, and the only sound left is the autumn sea, with only the sound of waves lapping on the sand. The white sails of a yacht floating offshore still retain a faint remnant of summer.

The beauty of the autumn leaves varies depending on how early or late the frost falls. The leaves begin to change color on Mount Daisetsu from mid-September, and it takes a month for them to reach the villages. The earliest to turn red are the leaves of wild grapes and lacquer trees. Autumn ends when the Japanese larch trees shed their fine leaves. Maples turn a vibrant crimson, and the yellow of katsura and white birch trees mix together to create an even more complex and gorgeous color.

Hidaka and the Pacific coast of Akan, which are often foggy in summer, experience successive periods of clear autumn weather, and the mountains and lakes become transformed into a world of autumn leaves.

If you were asked where the most typical autumn in Hokkaido is, you would answer Kushiro Marsh.

The endless yellow reed land and the clear blue sky show the roundness of the earth in a magnificent and simple composition.

The flying of the wild red-crowned cranes that live in this marsh adds a sense of splendor to this lonely landscape.

The misty Lake Mashu and Lake Akan, with their hidden marimo algae, color the lake surface brilliantly, making us mourn the short autumn.

Abashiri is also one of my favorite places. It is dotted with Lake Tofutsu, Lake Mokoto, Lake Abashiri, Lake Notoro, and Lake Saroma. In particular, Lake Notoro, which has its mouth on the Sea of ​​Okhotsk, is dyed red with a flower called akeshi grass. This annual plant is said to be carried by the waves. On days when the clouds are low and the lake surface looks white, the red field looks like small flames are burning.

This sad but beautiful red will soon burn out. Soon, sleet will fall on the lake, signaling the end of late autumn and autumn in the far north.

When I was a child, the harsh winter of the early Taisho period was a direct hit, and we endured the cold of minus 20 degrees without any help. Even with the coal stove burning red hot, the cold chill was creeping up my back. Also, when I woke up in the morning, my breath had frozen around the collar of my quilt, turning it white. I wore a thick knitted shirt, a sarumata, and thigh-length pants as underwear. I wore a cotton kimono and haori with cotton filling, and sturdy tabi socks called Oni-jirushi.

When I went outside, I wore a tako hat, a neck wrap, bokko gloves, and straw shoes. No matter how much I wore, I couldn't get my body warm, so I always had two sticks hanging under my nose, and my cheeks were red and cracked. Even so, the children were flying kites, skating in the snow, and sledding, forgetting to go inside. My cuffs and hems were frozen solid, so I had to go near the stove and spend time melting the ice and drying them.

Now there are many cars and crowded houses, making this a memory from a long time ago. Many of the forests in Hokkaido, which have few evergreen trees, barely have any leaves in winter. The only trees showing their brown, dead leaves are the oak trees.

I can see the natural forest across the road from my studio all year round, but by the end of November, it is beautifully bare. In some years, it can be as early as late October.

Nowadays, with the spread of cold-climate housing, people are keeping their rooms warm day and night, so there are many homes with tropical trees in bloom. Winter in the city is often thought of as gray. In the past, clothing was a world of achromatic black and gray, but now winter is rather more colorful.

In February, snow festivals and ice festivals are held in various places. It seems to be more about enjoying winter life, but it contributes greatly to the transitional period of the tourism industry.

It was the idea of ​​a man named Kondo, who was the only person running the tourist association secretariat at the time. I drew the first poster in 1977, and the same design was used for the next eight years.

Whether it's a gray, dark day with powdery snow falling quietly, a blizzard that covers everything in a white curtain, or a day when the sun shines brightly and the temperature drops to minus 10 degrees, it is a winter day that surely marks the arrival of spring.