Black pictures on white paper.

Telling a panda's story in a black and white picture book is a fantastic idea—pandas are, after all, themselves both black and white. In many places around the world, and especially Southeast Asia, black and white are the colours which represent life and death, or the yin and yang. They are on opposite ends of the spectrum, poles apart, yet also comes to form a unified whole. They are the fundamental colours of life, the basic forms of existence, and the backbone of civilization itself. I approached the design of A Panda’s Story with awe in my heart—I was in awe of the colours of black and white, in awe of nature, and in awe of pandas.

——Commentary by Kohei Sugiura, world-famous book designer