Japan Industrial Design Promotion Organization

The activities of a group known as "Designer Makers" are currently booming in U.K.. They do all the process of furniture industry, such as designing, manufacturing, selling and so on. Most of the members are young, like their ages are late twenties and early thirties.
The way they have their own brand looks like so-called indie labels in the music business. The activities of "designer makers" were anticipated by the works of Ron Arad and Tom Dixon during the 1980s, then each group has its own design. So many quarters has been giving much attention to their works, because of varied individuality of their design.
Designers of each group realized inportance of the originality for them to survive in design industry. Such realization of severe conditions makes design industry active. Some people see such design activities as chaotic energy in London.
In this report, you see the survival challenge of young designers in design advanced nation, after the decline in industry.

Shin Azumi, Product Designer (London)

The point in development of "VehiCROSS" design is modeling concept as "crossover". This concept includes "on-road speciality" and "off-road runner". The exterior of "VehiCROSS" offers a boldly conceived division into steel panels and resin panels. It shows image of dynamic muscles on top and functional strength below. In the interior, the organic trim has been taken off and replaced by a bone-like structure. Such interior supplies the contradictory of construction, as openness appropriate to drivers and tight sporty feeling. How could bold ideas of designer be embodied for mass-produced vehicle ? The answer lies in a development system called "Zip Car Project", centering on a specially appointed section of the company.
"VehiCROSS" was released by Isuzu Mortors on April 26, with taking new concept "SUV speciality" into car industries. Can Isuzu be in the position of "RV specialist", after showing RV's much possibility in the project.
In this report, we show the development of "VehiCROSS" design, with the concept sketches drawn at the studio in Europe and making of the final prototype of the mass-produced vehicles.

George Yanaka, Assistant Manager, Industrial Design Department, Isuzu Motors Ltd.

Fujitsu's activity for new product identity (PI) started from the model change in FMV Deskpower series. This series were released in November 1995 to "Windows '95". Then new design has been created for 3 years. For example, the "FMV Biblo" series, notebook computers in Winter of '96, "GranPower 5000" and "IGrandPower 6000" series of PC servers.
In June, the mobile terminal "INTERTop", which is the product of highly advanced design activities will be released. This is going to be a group of products of Fujitsu's new design concepts. In this report, Yoshihiro Ueda and Akihiko Ishizuka, Fujitsu's Industrial Design Department, give us instruction on the activities in their department to create Fujitsu's new PI design over 6 years.

Yoshihiro Ueda and Akihiko Ishizuka, Industrial Design Department, Design Laboratory, Fujitsu Ltd.

In most people's minds, Swedish design immediately conjures images of cars such as Volvo and Saab, electrical household appliances such as Electrolux, and other internationally known industrial products. The remarkable feature of such products is that they are underpinned by unique design policies. But one range of Swedish products that should not be overlooked includes products intended for elderly and handicapped people which have attracted much attention since the late 1970s. Such products have been acclaimed worldwide not only for their extremely high quality but because they reflect that Swedish companies approach the manufacture of products.
The distinctive Swedish interior styles known as the "Swedish" or "Gustavian" style reflect the difficult social conditions which Sweden experienced during the nineteenth century. Therefore such style is more simple than the styles of other Scandinavian countries. This style has great influence on contemporary interior design, architecture and product design in Sweden.
An attractive external appearance and a subdued coloration are features common to utilitarian glassware, simple lighting equipment, and tools easily used.
A "Swedish Good Design" exhibition was held between March 18 and 27 at the JIDPO.
In this report we take a look at new developments in Swedish design from among products with the "Excellent Swedish Design" label selected every year by Svensk Form.

Ulf Beckman, Editor, FORM Design Magazine, Svensk Form + Design News