Message from Organizer
The Japan Institute of Design Promotion announced the winners of the 2015 Good Design Award. I heartily congratulate all the people who won the Good Design Award. Furthermore, I would like to extend my sincere gratitude to everyone who has participated in the Good Design Award.
This year, there were more winners of the Good Design Award than last year: 1,337 designs out of 3,658 entries, which was the largest number of entries in the last ten years. I think this indicates that not only more people now have great expectations of design but that the role design performs in society has also become more and more important. This year, to respond to such changes surrounding design in an appropriate manner, we went through a three-month-long screening process under a new screening regime headed by Mr. Kazufumi Nagai as the Chairperson and Ms Fumie Shibata as the Vice Chairperson of the Judging Committee, which consisted of a total of 80 committee members, including 12 overseas members. As a new approach, we put together twelve FOCUSED ISSUES in the screening process as issues which society or individuals must deal with. Also, by looking at how design reaches out to these FOCUSED ISSUES, we not only attempted to ascertain the role of design in contemporary society, but also endeavored to identify such keys and seeds that will form our future life and society.
In addition, we also engaged in international cooperation for improvement of global design capabilities by implementing a screening process in Korea, Taiwan and Hong Kong and by evaluating the designs created in various parts of Asia in cooperation with local people.
Furthermore, there were many entries from the special category for Tohoku & Ibaraki area, which has continued from 2011 as part of the disaster reconstruction aid. For the Good Design Japanese Furniture Selection, which started last year with the aim of revitalizing the furniture design sector in Japan, we were able to continue to select excellent furniture designs.
After the announcement of the awards today, the Good Design Award will move on to the next important stage: promotion. Through the Good Design Award, while we share with society the true meaning embodied in each design and those issues that each design tries to tackle, we will widely promote through a variety of meaningful activities the fact that design plays an indispensable role in our efforts to move society forward.
As a main promoter of the Good Design Award, we hope that as many of you as possible will have an opportunity to see the designs which won an award and appreciate their value so that it will become an opportunity for you to rediscover the role of design in shaping our future.
It would be appreciated if you could continue to support the Good Design Award.
Japan Institute of Design Promotion
President : Atsushi Oi
Message from Chairman
More people than ever nominated their works for the 2015 Good Design Award. The concept of design has become widely accommodated in society and has come to be recognized as an important element in a variety of fields. The Good Design Award vividly reflects this relationship between society and design. If you look at the winning designs from the Good Design Award this year, you will understand how design attempts to contribute to the development of people’s livelihoods and industry and what people expect from design. In particular, when people ask how design motivates innovation or solutions, the Good Design Award serves as a prime example.
For the 2015 Good Design Award, we designated a few important areas which design must deal with as FOCUSED ISSUES and not only tried to make our evaluation based on, for one thing, how design relates to various social issues, but also tried to better understand the deeper meaning and value of designs nominated for the Award. What we found while conducting the screening process from this perspective was that it seems that the current trend in design is to try to slowly improve what is around us on a day-to-day basis rather than make a huge social impact in one go. For example, we were very impressed in this year’s Good Design Award by the diversity of people all over the country producing good designs as well as many NPOs, municipalities, and educational institutions, from a variety of viewpoints, all eagerly trying to put design to good use.
The designs look like modest incremental attempts to remove a number of tiny flaws that exist in various aspects of daily life. At the same time, it should not be overlooked that none of them exists as a solitary and separated design movement, but rather they are supported by a will to make good use of design to connect people who share the same awareness and encourage each other. Such activities relate to each other, resulting in a greater force of impact on society.
Design should not be measured by its scale or impact. Where design prospers, new possibilities will be born in society. It is our hope that you can understand, through each design that won an award, that in various activities we should see the dream pursued by the design and the concrete methodology of the design whose purpose is to make the dream come true, and that each and every design possesses something which appeals to contemporary society.
Good Design Award 2015
Chairman : Kazufumi Nagai
Good Design Award 2015
Vice Chairman : Fumie Shibata