Japan Industrial Design Promotion Organization

"Design Marks 1997: Hot & Cool" contains the answers to 3 questions our magazine made, mainly from designers and journalists active in their fields in the cities around the world.
It is very difficult to grasp guiding principles to carry out design activities. So we planned to make a special article as a design information map for designers seeking information ( Web-sites, design magazines, design centers, museums and schools, etc.) .
We asked 40 design opinion leaders in Japan and overseas to answer the questionnaire survey. Then we have edited the answers in the forms of notes and comments based on 24 of them.

?oeQuestionnarie
1.Please recommend us some Web-sites, Design Magazine, Centers of Design and Design Awards which you are eye and utilizing for your design work. And also please state the reason why you recommend.
a.Web-site
b.Design magazine (including CD-ROM)
c.Center of Design (Design Center, Museum, Design School, Design Organization and so on)
d.Design Awards (Awards, Selection, Competition and so on)
2.If there is some designers and / or design activities motivating your design work at present, please introduce. And also please state the reason.
3.Please write your design project(s) you are enthusiastic.

Edited by Design News.

Plasma is a display method different to conventional one with a picture tube and liquid crystal. Plasma display is one of the key devices that each electronic-equipment manufacturer in Japan is desperately developing at present.
In February '97, NEC distributed the first Plasma TV, "Plasma X", on which a 42-inch color plasma display is mounted.
In the design process for "Plasma X", the difference between its design and that of conventional TV was that the plasma TV design began with the proposals for its use. Proposals (sketches, etc.) about ways the TV could possibly be used, were done in the preliminary stage before starting actual design work. The points of designing were how to achieve a thinness of less than 100 mm, and how to make the constitution of the display surface as flat as possible by removing the device surrounding of the display section. In the design image of "Plasma X" at the first stage, there is a thin flat plate with a beautiful visual image, and music flowing out.
We interviewed NEC Plasma Display Business Promotion Division and NEC Design Ltd. concerning the development of its design, then considered the future form of TV which is being transformed into a multi-media information terminal in each household.

Edited by Design News.

"If design can be something going beyond form in this era in which space is limitlessly divided according to form based on function, it'll be wonderful. We can see such design in "Air Garden",by Tom Dixon and Inflate. Therefore, when Tom Dixon says that his new work is just "Jack", not either a chair or lighting, people should see the true possibilities of design in it. Today, as long as designed chairs and lighting are expressed in the forms as they are, they'll give us nothing but physical and spiritual "peace of mind". When a chair force us to keep sitting on it or a bed forces us to keep sleeping on it, then if we don't throw them away, and recreate our behavior using objects without name, we'll only repeat the same way even as we pass the end of this century.
The possibilities of "Jack" depends on the behavior of people who are wrestling with the object. Therefore, "Jack" is not the result of design; "Jack" is material to be designed. What the designers intend to do is to turn chairs and lighting into "things", by removing their virtues from items of merchandise." Installation work"Air Garden", by Tom Dixon and Inflate,the most notable designer maker in London, was shown at E & Y Gallery in Tokyo from May 22 - 27.
Prior to this exhibition, Eizo Okada interviewed Tom Dixon and the members of Inflate, Nick Crosbie and Mark Sodeau, and collected data for our magazine.

Eizo Okada, Interior Designer + Design News

Contemporary ceramic design has entered the period of confusion in the lifestyle of Japanese people, mixing traditional Japanese living style and Western living styles. Under such circumstances, there is a major design movement which expresses interest and pleasure in the forms of utensils, seeking freedom of shape by liberation from the formation of utensils designed with emphasis on their function and use. On the other hand, we must not overlook the pursuit of new possibilities of design attached to "crafts which make things using molds" with the assumption of productivity.
We planned a special article focusing on contemporary ceramic design as products".
The report was based on the works of 7 ceramic designers including Masahiro Mori, and the track of post-war ceramic design in Japan based on the exhibition held in Aichi Prefectural Ceramic Museum from June 3 to July 27.

Present ceramic design, mainly Japanese-style ceramic tableware

Akihiko Miyawaki / Professor of Art and Craft Course, Aichi University of Education

Utensils Designed Strictly For Mass Production
Work of Masahiro Mori, Product designer

Masahiro Karasawa / Curator, Aichi Prefectural Ceramic Museum

Table Ware Goals For Daily Life

Edited by Design News