Mixed genre projects and activities are increasing

Hattori: I think this Project and Activity Judging Unit is a unit to evaluate projects and activities of people who are attempting new innovations in society, such as activities in local areas, activities where companies and localities team up to tackle a project, plans that are carried out by governments, and the people who support those things.
The items for judging are basically abstract, and we carefully read through all of the materials of the entries we received. Then the judging committee members decipher each item based on what has been practiced up to now.
Although this is a relatively newly established judging unit for the Good Design Award, the number of applications is increasing year on year.

Yamade: Considering this judging unit as a whole, I think we saw quite a lot of mixing of genres, or cross-sectional projects. In that sense, I think you can say this judging unit tends to receive much more items that relate to society as a whole than other units.

Yamazaki: In addition, compared to when I participated in the judging before, design has come to be perceived much more broadly, and the overall number of applications has increased greatly. At the same time, I get the impression that things that would have been thought of as worthy of an award before having become increasingly commonplace. In that sense, when judging, I felt that there were quite a few items that we were sadly not able to award a prize to, even though I wanted to choose them because they were worthy in terms of the "discovery" part of the G Mark guideline concepts of "discovery, sharing, creation."

Yamade: I feel there is a big increase in the kind of thinking that demands to see beauty in the "responsibility" to create a sustainable society. Conversely, if it doesn't have that perspective, its approach became a big subject for debate at judging time, no matter how beautiful the form was. As a judge I tried to properly consider whether they've disregarded certain aspects, even if they have made a very good product or service.

5 judging criteria for "Project and Activity"

Hattori: I really thought deeply about what beauty was, and who the design was for. Moreover, in addition to this year's Good Design Award overall theme of "beauty and the power to resonate," this unit used five judging criteria in its considerations, which I shall put up for you here.
(1) Is it focused on an essential social issue?
(2) Is there originality in the details and plans?
(3) Are the presentation and the deliverables (output) beautiful?
(4) Does it have continuity and actual results?
(5) Does it have the power to resonate and be thought of as a good design by society as a whole?
These perspectives were used in our judging.

Yamazaki: In the first screening, each committee member looks at the materials online, makes their own assessment, and then discusses it with the other members from the unit. For example, first I took a quick look over the whole thing. There was an overall viewpoint for judging the Good Design Award so I had that in mind, and I also had to decide what key points to decide on, and after a rough look over hundreds of applications, I decided my own criteria.
Then when we all gathered together and had a discussion, saying things like "I chose this based on these thoughts," "that judgement is very similar," and "I came to that judgement while adding this perspective," which resulted in coming up with five original key criteria for this unit.

Those 5 criteria are actually in the same order I use when I'm designing.
First, when you start designing, you have to properly see what the actual issue is, as sometimes there are designs that pretend to have solved fake issues that they have fabricated. To explain this in more detail, there have actually been times when a client has asked me to make something, but I have something else I have to make first, so I have made up an issue on purpose to encompass that. It's a difficult area. Therefore, to start with "(1) Is it focused on an essential social issue?" and "Is it an issue that should be solved?" was put in first place.
The second one is "(2) Is there originality in the details and plans?" Regardless of whether the problem solving is beautiful, you have to examine whether there is originality in the details and plans, including their continuity, and whether you've seen anything like it up to now. Ask first "is there originality in the parts of the plan, before considering the beauty of its form?"
The third one is "(3) Are the presentations and deliverables (output) beautiful?" Here we can finally look at whether there is beauty in its deliverables, output and presentation, and whether it's something that people will think is good. The fourth one is "(4) Does it have continuity and actual results?" Here we look at whether this is the end of it or if it can continue further, and consider if there are actual results from the project. These four things are questions I ask myself when I design or do a project, so I thought I'd check each one from that perspective.
On top of that, we added "(5) Does it have the power to resonate and be thought of as a good design by society as a whole?" The "power to resonate" was an overall theme that was attached to these awards, so we thought we'd try and add it to this unit's key criteria, and evaluate whether the items resonated or had that power. Therefore, I got the impression that we judged things quite strictly.

Hattori: Yes, I think we were quite strict. Moreover, the local activities and so on were all good things. On top of that, there were many emotional things that struck a chord in your heart. So, we had to decide while hardening our hearts, and I think judging was very difficult.

Are the details properly conveyed to the judging committee members?

Yamade: When you read about an application for judging, if it's a product you can actually touch it and try to use it so that you can get a deeper understanding, but you can't do that with the items for judging in this unit. Therefore, what is written in the application materials is everything, and while the judges look at all the links and videos that are attached to the application materials, there are still many aspects that they don't understand. I think that probably most of the applications involve initiatives where everyone is doing wonderful things, but I feel that there are a number of points that are essential for the details to be properly conveyed to the judging members. One of these is that it's very important to know "Who is going to do it?" for that project or activity. Especially when solving local or social issues, "Is someone who is passionate about it doing it?" needs to be asked, and are the details of the project logical and not subjective or based on sentiment, so that they are understandable to someone who doesn't know about it. This is very important, as the items that were properly organized could be deeply discussed by the judging members during the judging.
If I were to mention another point, it would be "Are they really skeptical enough about the issue and what they are trying to do?" The judging committee is looking to see if they have a process to properly verify what they are trying to do. If there isn't, and it's something they've just thought of and want to begin from now, we can't give them an award, as it's very important whether or not they have accumulated experience of a proper process and actual results, and even if it's a prototype, have continually verified it to a certain level.

Volunteer Activities for Terminally Ill Patients [NEGAI NO KURUMA] (GOOD DESIGN BEST100)

Hattori: This was an item that made everyone think about what it was, not just when discussing it in the unit, but also when talking to judging members from other units. A person who knew about an overseas service of taking terminally ill patients to memorable places before they die, wondered whether this project could be done in Japan, went and learned about it, and then started volunteer activities with people around him back in Japan. The leaders were people from a company that exports used cars overseas, and while the activities have only been going on for about a year, it was highly rated as a project as an extremely good activity, and for its creation of a team.

Yamade: This is a service involving terminal care, but it can't be done by the used car dealers alone, as they have to get the cooperation of the patients' caregivers, get students to accompany them, get the cooperation of people who can drive, and it is only by bringing together these different people with different attributes and skills that this volunteer activity can grant the wishes of the terminally ill.
There was a lot of debate within this unit and with the overall judging committee about how long this service could continue for. And whether it could be turned into a proper business. However, what we in this unit attached great importance to was how they were "trying to take the first step to quickly solve a problem that they saw in front of them." That is very important for a local community. Consequently, I hope that they can come to an arrangement that builds it up as a business, then while steadily making it into a business, get other people involved, and create an organization that can run continuously.
To put something out into the world after making everything perfect was not particularly at the top of this unit's judgements, as we attached more importance to how it confronted society, and how it advanced the program while overcoming various tests.

Yamazaki: While checking whether it was sustainable, and whether it could be turned into a proper business model, we also confirmed that it was proceeding on a scale that didn't necessarily need to be turned into a business.
For example, as it's being run by a used car export company, they have cars that could be used as the "negai no kuruma (dream car)." I don't think it would be too difficult to recruit people who would be willing to drive that car. And if you go to a facility that is involved in giving terminal care, you should be able to search for, meet, and connect with volunteers who are giving terminal care.
By acting with a little imagination, you can achieve various things, and by combining original approaches together as the project advances, it doesn't seem to be the type of big project where you need to pay money from the start to get it moving, and we judged that it may be able to work like this without too much trouble.
However, for these items that are doing good things, but may stop working if they don't have a certain amount of money, or activities that are being done by everyone's will to carry them out, there is a worry that they may not be able to continue as they are.
We're concerned about whether it is has been properly organized.
Therefore, we look at each item on a case by case basis to see if they can be properly operated, and there are times when we may judge that it is okay if the scale means that it can progress by just harnessing everyone's will together, which may be a special characteristic of this unit.

Clinic [Kagayaki Lodge] (GOOD DESIGN BEST100)

Yamazaki: Talking of that, the "Kagayaki Lodge," which won the Gold Award, was also good. Currently in this aging society, you can see from figures that the country's budget is becoming insufficient, and that the exhaustive medical care and social welfare systems are gradually breaking down. The exhaustive care involves hospitalization, giving out medicines, and looking after the patient 24 hours a day, and as this 24-hour system includes doctors, nurses and carers having to do the looking after, this is the most expensive way of doing it.
If you just consider the financial side, if they could stay at home and be looked after by local people, it wouldn't cost as much money as experts and professionals look after them 24 hours a day. There must be lots of variations between these two extremes.
So now local communities, as well as the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare, are talking about local comprehensive care and a community-friendly society, in which they have to create a situation where there are medical care sites, nursing care sites and home nursing stations in the local area where people are used to living, as well as home visits carried out by doctors.
By doing this, they will be able to live to the end in a place where their family and friends are close by, while hearing children's voices on their way to and from school, just like in the olden days.
So, at this time, there is a question of how to make that medical care site, and this is what this project is about. If you're just making that site, normal thinking would suggest it will be fine as long as it has an office facility. However, this restricts the office space to one third of what would conventionally be used, and uses the remaining two thirds of space to create a place where local people can get together in various ways.
The reason for this is that local people still have no idea of what "community medical care" is, so if they have any problems everyone thinks they need to be hospitalized straight away, which is the type of medical care that costs more money. So, by making a place where local people can always gather together like this Kagayaki Lodge, it can be used as a space where "local people can learn to understand about community medical care." By doing this, if family or relatives have a problem, there is an increase of people in the community who can say that community medical care is one option that they can consider.
Therefore, it would be totally unsatisfactory to talk about this arrangement just in terms of the Kagayaki Lodge being a stylish space or very functional. As it is a project that has a precise grasp of the issues involved, I think it's perfect.

Yamade: When we were judging there was hardly any talk along the lines of "the building is good." Instead of that, we thought that from the local comprehensive care perspective, it was good that they had created a place like this that the people involved in giving care could visit and hear the assembled voices tell them what issues the local area had, and that a place like this was necessary.
As we talked about before, this doesn't involve starting with a big innovation or grandiose ideas about transforming something, but "gathering together what you already have and doing what you can straight away."
This time there were lots of examples like this, and I thought that in terms of size and scale, rather than talking about having to scale them up to turn them into a business, it reflected working within the range of what was possible.

Kondo: This was the first year that I participated in the judging, and there were many applications that made me feel hopeful when I saw all the various projects and activities that are taking place in Japan. For example, something like "Choisoko," uses a very hybrid approach to demonstrate pragmatic solutions by using the potential of the current system, and I thought it was really great being able to see this side.

Local Comprehensive Care [Iwaki area comprehensive care igoku] (GOOD DESIGN GOLD AWARD / GRAND AWARD FINALIST)

Hattori: "Iwaki's Local Comprehensive Care igoku" was a Gold Award winner and a finalist for the Grand Award. It's a community project that created a much-needed media called "igoku" to convey to the all the citizens what type of specific thing the local comprehensive care was offering.

Yamade: This project combines a number of initiatives together, like setting up events, distributing free papers to the neighborhood, and creating a website. I was once again made aware of what a big issue local comprehensive care currently is through judging this unit, with projects like this, "Kagayaki Lodge" and "Negai no Kuruma."
The theme of this project is that most people want to spend their last moments in their own homes, but most people are unable to have that wish fulfilled. We heard that this project started from the idea that even if people had faced a lot of hardships in their lives, it would be nice if in their last moments they could at least be at home and think "I am happy."
The main point is that death is a fate that we all share. So, because of that they wanted everyone, not just the individual concerned, but also their family and the community as a whole, to think about how they wanted to live and how they could really be happy when finally meeting their end. For that reason, this was a project that created a place for everyone to think about those things and to talk about the difficult subject of death. "igoku" is also making a place to get people to consider welfare from a slightly broader perspective, and to make them think about not only death, but also the local community and disabilities.
For example, at one event they put a coffin in a park and got elderly people like grandmothers to get into it, and gave children the experience of seeing what that looked like. Just hearing that, it sounds quite shocking, right?
However, looking at the video, the children's faces quickly change into a solemn expression. From that time, the children become interested parties, and began to properly see the grandmother inside the coffin. Events like these conveyed their philosophy that death shouldn't be treated as a taboo, and everyone should properly think about it together, without leaving anybody out. I thought it was a good example of putting those thoughts into a solid form, and that there are various ways to create output.
The materials that were written for "igoku" that we saw at the first screening, were written in a way that was a little restrained, but properly conveyed the important points so that we could find them when judging. The passionate parts were also important like "is there a sense of ownership?" and who are the people with strong feelings for this project?

Hattori: It's also quite important whether it is original or not, and whether it has a story that is unique to that region. We look quite closely to see if that has been drawn out.

Delivering the greatest value of the production area

Yamade: Talking about this from a slightly different angle, there are many things with really great ways of thinking, that have accumulated actual results, and are about to launch from now on, which are quite wonderful. In particular, making projects that connects a place that can provide help to something that is struggling, or connecting a production area and cities together.
I think there are parts of design that are misunderstood, for example there are cases where there is excessive decoration, and many examples of things that are over designed in an attempt to connect, but maybe what I really want is something simple that is made by a local production area's grandma.
Therefore, if there is a design that communicates something, for example if you can see it's delivering the greatest value of the production area, I think that's really great. Also, when we speak of beauty in this unit, we hardly ever say things like "the design of the package is beautiful." And it's not very important outside of this unit either. Of course, as it's a design award there are times when we say we can't allow this design to get out, but what we debate most among ourselves is whether the design is perfectly connected to the essence of the project. If it does not appear so, it's difficult to give it an award, no matter how good the project is.

Yamazaki: I may be repeating myself, but this is something that is easy to misunderstand, as some things also appear that are ruled out because of their appearance. That balance is very tricky. A project may be good, but that might not be conveyed by the deliverables of the output. The judging committee doesn't think that something is okay as long as it looks good. However, there are times when something receives a Good Design Award, but we find that the output isn't up to scratch when it's shared widely, so this is a truly difficult area.

Hattori: Talking of that, whether or not it's trying to communicate something or not should come to the surface. So, there's talk about things like excessive design and the outer layers, but rather than it being a case of excess, I think designs are picked up in which you can clearly see that they are trying to communicate with someone. And I think there is something that resonates in there.

Kondo: We've talked about not seeing many decorative designs, but among many similar projects and activities, "igoku" was a design that excited me a little bit as its creativity was really remarkable. The moment I saw it, I didn't sense the creator's ego or the designer's ego, but could see that it would make the people concerned really happy.

Yamazaki: It may have already been said, but the judging committee is looking to see if the details of what is trying to be done match properly with what is seen on the surface. If what is being done or trying to be done is sincerely wonderful, but the design that appears on the surface is no good, then of course that's not acceptable.
And it's also weird if the aimed-for thing is quite small, but it's been made into a big thing with a flashy appearance, as even though they're trying to do a good thing, an excessively decorative design that is totally out of character with the contents makes us feel ill at ease. It may sound quite by the book, but I think after all that you could say we're looking at the degree of fit between the contents and the outside appearance.

Conclusion: We care about things that make us think, "they've thought up something clever," "they've solved it brilliantly," or "I see! I get it!"

Hattori: We talked earlier about whether things could be sustainable as businesses, but I think that in society in the future there will be an increase of projects created for extreme minorities.
We also talked before about it not being a problem of scale, and this time I got the strong feeling that people will surely come forth who paint a vision of the future about a world where extreme minorities can live together with everyone.

Yamade: The big story may be what Mr. Hattori said, but the judges also talked a lot among ourselves about economic spheres. For example, we would often think in particular that if a project could get certain parts of economic spheres working properly, then that it would truly make the local people happy. That may also be modelled and linked in various ways. I think last year's Good Design Grand Prize winner, "Otera oyatsu club," had a similar philosophy.
I think designs to solve problems in local communities will probably become very significant in the future. As models are created in local areas that spread out to various places in the wider world, of course the existence of digital media is a big factor, but I really want people to try out lots of different small implementations.
I don't mind if that is still just at the prototype stage, as I think that it's really wonderful if projects and activities are created that are trying to change Japan as a whole, by getting various people to participate while they launch and using a variety of knowledge.
I feel it's very important at this stage of society, to keep experimenting and trying to put small models into practice, rather than waiting until something has been perfected.

Yamazaki: When applying to something named a design award, there is probably a tendency to think that you'll win an award if you enter something that make the judges think "that looks cool," and I think there are cases where that is important as key evaluation point, but in this unit the judges don't say those words (laughs).
So, if you're someone thinking of applying, I really want you to enter something that makes the judges think "oh, there was that way of doing it!" We don't feel at all that we're above everyone and are "giving out awards," but we're looking for applications that make us feel "I'm envious of that," or "that's better than what I could come up with," and for those things we have an view of judging that's like, "thank you very much for showing me this good thing."
Therefore, if you empathize with this unit's judging, and want to apply with a project or activity, as I said before, a minimum level is required for the relationship between the form and the contents, but I want you to know that you won't get a prize just for something being beautiful or looking cool. Instead, I'd be happy if you apply knowing that this is a unit that cares about things that make us think, "they've thought up something clever," "they've solved it brilliantly," or "I see! I get it!"

Kondo: What I felt this time was that design doesn't involve a single point, but involves something that becomes a cycle. Generally, all the award winners created a good cycle in the local area, and it was not just one-way traffic, but the projects always involved something good circulating around and around that area, or money circulating around and around, or people always returning, and while the cycle may have been small, they became reasonable projects. I hope that they become ripples that spread out one by one.
I hope from here that good cycles and materials that are solid and oriented towards the future are discovered, and that next it leads to a discovery that makes you think "wow, there was this way of creating that cycle." There are still lots of issues in this world, and I hope that projects which deal with them skillfully appear, then become widely known through the Good Design Award, and then this leads to an accumulation of various good things.
Recently I've felt that while originality is very important, creativity and design are developed when someone finds or creates something good and a lot of people join in updating it. Therefore, I expect that this year's award winners will have something different added to them, by different areas and the people concerned, to produce something new and original again. I saw lots of those types of design, which reassured me greatly.

Hattori: In that sense, the applications from overseas were also amazing. There truly were many great examples from people working overseas. In particular, there were lots of applications from Asia, and I think it's great to refer to those great examples too. Thank you very much for today.