Soun Takeda

Takeda Sōun (武田双雲) is a Japanese calligrapher. He is from Kumamoto, Kumamoto Prefecture. He is 1.85 m (6 ft 2 in) tall.

Education
He graduated from Kumamoto City Onoue Elementary School, Kumamoto City Nishikigaoka Junior High School, Kumamoto Marist Gakuen High School, and Tokyo University of Science, Faculty of Science and Technology, Department of Information Science.

Calligraphy
Before getting into calligraphy, he worked as a sales representative for for two and a half years. He was known for his good handwriting within the department, but when he wrote the name of a female employee, the woman was moved to tears and said, "I used to hate my name, but now I like it for the first time." Taking this as an opportunity, he resigned the next day.

He studied calligraphy at his mother Futaba Takeda's calligraphy class for a year, and then started working as a street calligrapher. He held his first solo exhibition in his mid-20s. He exhibited his improvised writing style on the roadside at the request of passersby, and was later featured on television and other media for his large-character performance using ink. He attracted attention in the field of design calligraphy, such as the title characters of NHK's historical drama.

He is left-handed but uses his right hand when writing. He can, however, write with his left hand. He wrote the logo for the K Supercomputer. In June 2019, he won the 38th Best Father Yellow Ribbon Award in the Academic and Cultural category.