Speaking of Japan, what is the first key word you think of? Nice comic book? Wonderful cartoons or Ukiyo-e with a deep Japanese cultural imprint? So speaking of Japanese brands, the first thing you think of is whether it is Uniqlo or MUJI. Whenever you want to choose electronic products for yourself, Sony, Canon, Nikon, and Panasonic may all be in your consideration. As the only non-Western country among the world’s major design nations, Japan has produced many outstanding designers, such as Yohji Yamamoto, Yayoi Kusama, Kenzo Tange and so on. The highest honor in the international architecture industry, the Pritzker Architecture Prize, has produced a total of forty-five winners, of which eight are Japanese designers. Having an outstanding designer may not explain much, but the overall design level of society can be maintained to a considerable height, but it is not easy. Japanese design can be said to have been integrated into every part of daily life. The design elements are everywhere, from buildings to tableware. Japanese design has now become synonymous with high-quality design. Designers take into account both aesthetics and user experience to produce high-quality and inexpensive products. But in fact, in the middle of the last century, Japan did not even have a concept of design. They relied on plagiarism to develop their economy and were condemned by the world. However, in the short period of thirty years from the 1950s to the 1980s, Japan was firmly established as a design power. What makes them develop so quickly? The book “Sixty Years of Japanese Design” that we shared with you today gives us a clear answer.
Works by Yayoi Kusama
The author of this book, Shigeru Uchida, is also a Japanese design master. His designs are in the permanent collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the Museum of Modern Art in San Francisco, and the Denver Museum of Art. As a designer representing Japan, he is highly praised internationally. Born in 1943, he has participated in and witnessed almost the entire process of Japanese design in the past sixty years. He can be described as a living fossil of sixty years of Japanese design. If you want to know the hidden secrets in Japanese design, perhaps no one can explain it better than him. As a witness, Shigeru Uchida has completed the book “Sixty Years of Japanese Design”, which tells the development of Japanese design in the past sixty years. It is invaluable for us to understand the full picture of Japanese modern and contemporary design. So today we want to talk about the history of Japanese design from plagiarism to diversification and what is the secret behind Japanese design.
Yamamoto Teruji
first part:
First, let’s look at the development history of Japanese design. “Sixty Years of Japanese Design” refers to the sixty years from 1950 to 2010. The explanation is mainly divided into three parts here.
First of all, the first part is the 1950s of the 20th century. Japanese design has just been in a stage of development for more than a decade after World War II, so you may not know that Japanese design fell into a vortex of plagiarism during this period. in.
When Japan’s economy just started, the concept of design was still not formed. In order to vigorously develop the economy, the country actually turned a blind eye to such imitations. The products manufactured by relying on cheap labor and rough production equipment actually do not satisfy the user experience very well. They have basic functions, but the quality is not good enough. Japanese manufacturing has even become synonymous with crude manufacturing at that time. When Japanese companies export these locally manufactured industrial products abroad, they continue to have trade frictions with other countries due to quality problems. In Japan at that time, people had almost no concept of intellectual property rights. Since the Meiji Restoration, Japan’s industrialization process has mainly relied on “importing” European and American designs and technologies. The so-called “importing” is actually plagiarism. For example, in 1928, General Electric introduced a vacuum cleaner. After the Japanese manufacturer Toshiba went to investigate, it launched the same model in 1931. Until now, it is still on the official website as a typical domestic first. In addition, the visual images of Leica cameras and food manufacturers are also copied from the United States. In 1958, when Japanese Minister of Foreign Affairs Aiichiro Fujiyama visited London, he was surrounded by a group of journalists and accused Japanese manufacturers of plagiarizing foreign packaging designs. Through television broadcasts, many Japanese saw this embarrassing scene, so they plagiarized. Also began to get the attention of the Japanese government. It is against this background that Japan held the first design award review meeting and decided to establish a “excellent design selection system”, that is, the G-Mark design award in Japan. The purpose of establishing this award is to “prevent exports “Infringement of intellectual property rights” and “selecting excellent designs and promoting them to the society” try to have a positive impact on society with good designs.
“G-type soy sauce bottle” of Hakusan pottery
The results of the first selection were announced in 1958. The winning designs included Toshiba’s rice cooker, Fuji’s electric fan, Sony’s AM radio, Hakusan pottery’s “G-type soy sauce bottle” and so on. In June of the same year, the Ministry of International Trade and Industry of Japan and the Patent Office (equivalent to the Patent Office) jointly organized the “Exhibition of Support for Excellent Design”. The exhibition displays authentic, imitation and plagiarism side by side, showing Japan’s latest attitude towards plagiarism. As of today, the cumulative number of products selected for the design award has reached tens of thousands, and it has also become a compass for Japanese design and production.
The second part is the 1960s. In this era, there are two events that promote the development of Japanese design. One is the Tokyo Olympics poster designed by Yusaku Kamekura that shocked the world. The second is that many designers have participated in the poster design of the underground drama. Let us first look at the first thing. In 1964, the Olympic Games will be held in Tokyo. As a pioneer of Japanese modern design, Yusaku Kamakura was naturally invited to design the overall graphic design of the Olympic Games, including logos, posters, and visual communication systems. This is a huge design project, and it is quite a success for Yusaku Kamakura. Meaningful opportunity. For the Japanese design community, it also has profound significance, which is reflected in at least two aspects. One is the possibility of combining modernist style with Japanese national content through this design. Second, this is an excellent opportunity for Japan to establish its own design image and design capabilities in the world. Yusaku Kamakura’s Olympic design this time is completely international. Regardless of the image, symbol, color plan or overall visual design, it has a typical internationalist style, and Yusaku Kamakura firmly penetrates the red in the Japanese flag throughout the design plan. The circle is the so-called sun symbol in Japan. Below this big round sun is equipped with the five rings of the Olympic logo and the design of “TOKYO1964” text. The white background and the round sun’s red and gold fonts are suitable for ordinary people. It is also a very easy-to-remember graphic. The posters of Yusaku Kamakura are highly modern, but they do not lose the symbolism and simplicity of traditional Japanese aesthetics. Japan’s unique family crest symbols are featured in the extensive use of posters. In addition, influenced by Ukiyo-e, the main colors are red, black, white and gold. Linking this red circle with the five rings of the International Olympic Games has formed the effect of both national characteristics and accurate international recognition. It is one of the outstanding works of the Olympic system design, and through this design Yusakuichi Kamakura Not only did he become a recognized master in China, but it also made the world pay attention to him and Japanese design. At the same time, an epoch-making event in this Olympic Games is the first time the icon of men and women is used on the toilet door. In addition, considering that many foreigners will come to watch the game, an icon that everyone can understand was invented, so that foreigners who don’t speak the language can see it at a glance.
In addition, Japanese design at the end of the 1960s also showed that many Japanese designers joined the ranks of underground drama poster design. The author of this book, Mr. Shigeru Uchida, recorded this trend movement as a witness. At that time, many famous Japanese designers participated, such as Tadanori Yokoo, and famous designers such as Akira Uno and Masatoshi Kawa once did poster designs for underground dramas. The famous Japanese designer Yokoo Tadano participated in the design of the poster for the drama “Belt Fairy: Forgetting Chapter”. The characters and colors of the flower card in the poster are transformed. The man in black formal wear and the man in women’s dress are looking at each other, naked women wearing helmets are flying in the air, and in front of them is the Shinkansen and statues on which a huge peach rides. Ukiyo-e-like wave patterns, with sunlight shining behind them, create an incredible world that is thick but light. Formed a world view of Japan condensed together that seems to make people laugh, but seems invisible. This poster has been kept forever in the Museum of Modern Art in New York since 1970. The psychedelic colors and patterns show their rich imagination and at the same time break the shackles of inherent concepts. At the same time, there is a sense of dynamism that can be added to the values and aesthetics of any era. These designers make the design of the poster no longer dependent on the drama, but staged a passionate and intoxicating “drama”. At the end of the 1960s, with a small theater centered in Shinjuku as the core, underground culture that merged non-mainstream culture and anti-traditional culture began to appear. Sports including drama, film, drama, graphic design and other industries swept young people in.
Belt Fairy · Forgetting
The third part is from the 70s to 2010. During this time, Japan has found a more diversified and unique design development path through its own development.
For example, on March 14, 1970, Japan hosted the Osaka World Expo, which was the first World Expo held in Asia. The theme is “Progress and Harmony of Mankind”. In this Expo, architects, urban planning engineers, artists and some experts in other fields are included. The Japanese architect Kenzo Tange will jointly plan and design the construction of the Expo site and the Expo. Overall planning. There are 116 different pavilions in the entire Expo venue. Architects from all over the world have given full play to their artistic imaginations, trying to make the Expo buildings themselves the most innovative and advanced exhibits. The building of the pavilion breaks the established traditional patterns of people. Both Japanese designers and designers from participating countries all use steel, glass and novel materials to emphasize modern architectural trends from the perspective of looking forward to future cities. One of the works that has attracted the most attention is the Tower of the Sun designed by Japanese modern art master Taro Okamoto. The tower of the sun looks like a soaring giant, but also like an ancient statue. Raised arms supported the huge roof of the magnificent festival square. There are four big masks on the tower of the sun: the top of the tower is the radiant “golden face”, the center of the tower is the “face of the sun” and the “dark star” looking at the festival square, and the bottom of the tower is the “underground star” Shining on the “lost world”. The four masks symbolize the past, present and future of the world. In 1975, the Japanese government decided to implement a permanent preservation of the Tower of the Sun, which became a country-specific monument. In order to successfully hold this Expo, the streets, subways, and buildings around the venue were completed, symbolizing that Japan has finally become the second largest economy after the United States.
Tower of the Sun
In 1980, when Japan reached the economic bubble era, Japanese design gradually moved towards simplicity and everyday life. Japanese design during the bubble period was more diversified. Design needs to think about the human spirit and the ideal way of existence of the social community, and it needs to be designed with nature as the background. In the 1980s, Japanese poster design and interior design were more open. In the construction industry, it is known as the post-modern era. This design is characterized by a more spacious space and a full sense of design. It is mainly reflected in the furniture, not simply You can sit down, but art should be displayed in furniture. A brand that was born in the 1980s is worth mentioning, MUJI. MUJI first started with food, and in a short period of time expanded to clothing and daily necessities, and later housewares centered on storage, furniture, and even coffee shops. Until now, MUJI’s products are also very popular, and simplicity and wood decoration have become synonymous with Japan.
Then with the continuous development of Japanese design, after entering the 1990s, Japanese design has also derived new fields such as website design, interface design, game design and animation design. There are also great achievements in architecture. For example, the completion of the Rainbow Bridge, the Fuji Television Headquarters building, hotels, entertainment facilities, commercial facilities, corporate headquarters buildings, public education facilities and apartments, and other forms of design continue to be completed, also reflecting the new face of Japan, and Japanese design in the world The influence within the scope should not be underestimated.
the second part:
So after understanding the 60-year history of Japanese design, let’s take a look at what are the unique things in Japanese design? The first feature is the dual track. One is national, traditional, warm, and clean. One is modern, developmental and international. Japan has always been an Eastern country with a long history, so its design style is very different from the West in terms of traditional or aesthetic standpoints. However, under the leadership and influence of the United States, Japan has vigorously developed internationalism in order to win the international market. Style design, but the Japanese also pay great attention to the protection of tradition and national characteristics, so they have formed a very unique routine, which is to step on two boats with one foot. It is internationalism externally and national tradition internally. For example, the graphic design master Ryuichi Yamashiro’s classic poster about protecting Japanese forest resources. Ryuichi Yamashiro uses the Chinese characters “木”, “林”, and “森” to combine repeatedly. The word itself is the forest itself, but this method is obviously for Westerners. It is meaningless, but for the Japanese people, it feels that it has a very sophisticated concept and meaning.
Graphic design master Ryuichi Yamashiro’s classic poster about protecting Japanese forest resources
The characteristics of the national design in the dual track are : based on Japanese traditional aesthetics, religion and beliefs, it is closely related to the daily life of Japanese people. For example, in the future, everyone will go to the supermarket to shop and pay special attention to the display cabinets selling Japanese sake. . Sometimes these features should not be purely product design or graphic design, but simply part of the Japanese cultural structure. The characteristics of modern design are: the use of imported technology to serve export is the core purpose of Japanese modern design. Modern design is mainly developed by learning from the experience of the United States and Europe. It pays attention to functionalism, rationality, and rigor, and it is often designed The elements adopt images and methods that can be recognized internationally. Because of factors such as American occupation and learning from Europe, Japanese modern design is closely related to Europe and the United States.
Except for the coexistence of eastern and western styles. Japanese design has the characteristics of luxurious decoration and simplicity, which is a compromise. For example, take car design as an example. The appearance of the Japanese luxury car brand Lexus is assumed to be relatively simple, low-key and unassuming compared to European cars and American cars. However, the interior design appears to be more luxurious and detailed than European cars. It is very careful in design and has a strong texture.
There are three reasons for this situation. The first is Japan’s learning attitude. Japanese people cherish every cultural system, cultural model, and cultural type they learn. They do not want and strive to prevent one cultural system from overwhelming another, but rather hope that these types of cultures can be inclusive and diverse. The second is Japan’s tolerance for multiculturalism. In this regard, we take religion as an example. The religion of the Japanese is called Shinto belief. In the 7th century, Buddhism began to be introduced into China and quickly spread and spread in Japan. Development, and in the 17th century, European Christianity also came, so from this time to today, these three types of religions are coexisting and developing, and no one side has squeezed out any one. The third is the more dialectical philosophical concept of the Japanese . The Japanese believe that all the development of the world and the universe is like a four-season cycle, and they also believe that the design should not only have a single standard forever, but should be more tolerant. It is highly flexible in design concept and implementation.
The third characteristic of Japan’s design is the group work model. Japanese design collectivism is different from the collective work method based on western individualism. For example, the father of American industrial design, design star Raymond Lowe, is a Frenchman who immigrated to the United States and once designed for Coca-Cola Bottle type. His design has achieved the largest volume in the world and is a typical collective work, but the entire organization is actually working around Raymond Rowe’s personal philosophy and reputation, which is quite a Chinese saying “one will succeed.” It means that it also shows the typical American “heroism” to a certain extent, while the Japanese design industry is basically united, working on projects with one heart and one heart, and not chasing personal reputation at all.
Raymond Rowe
In addition, the last characteristic of Japanese design is simplicity and symmetry. Japan has always had a very strong sense of graphic design throughout history. For example, book illustrations, ukiyo-e, and all kinds of traditional packaging have global influence. The most remarkable thing is that from the end of the 19th century to the beginning of the 20th century, Japanese graphic design stimulated the West The “Art Nouveau” movement, so Japanese designers at the time quickly found similarities between Japanese national aesthetics and European constructivist aesthetics. Among them, graphic designers have a special liking for constructivism, including now Many Japanese graphic designs still use constructivist techniques. Constructivism is simply a sculpture composed of pieces of metal, glass, wood, cardboard, and plastic. This fascinates the Japanese design community. In fact, the Japanese also like the symmetrical layout, rather than the asymmetrical way of pure constructivism. The central axis symmetry is one of the components of the long-term traditional Japanese design. It can be seen that Japanese designers do not fully absorb European routines, but rather Adjusted according to my own principles and preferences. Japanese graphic design often uses some simplistic symbolic patterns, such as flowers, animals, and plant patterns. Many modern Japanese poster designs also like to use most of the items. .
Japanese modern graphic design doesn’t use the way of text description, and the basic title is optional, which makes the design look very concise and clear. Japanese designers think that text is not the most important design content. This feature is related to the Zen Buddhism tradition in Japan that attaches great importance to consciousness.
Conclusion:
So through the book “Sixty Years of Japanese Design”, we learned that Japan began to develop design after the war. After sixty years of hard work, it has become a mature design system comparable to Europe and the United States, and Japanese design has also largely Influenced by Europe and the United States, even in art and culture, Japan can also find very deep traces of Europe and America. However, in the process of Westernization, Japanese society still retains many of its own national traditions and characteristics, just like the performance of design behavior. International and national dual-track system. In the development process of Japanese design, it did not follow the pure steps of European and American design, but constantly sought the combination between the two. The national painting, national color plan, national aesthetic standpoint, and national characters in Japanese design were all achieved at a higher level. Preserved and well integrated with modern design, it has won international recognition and appreciation.
Golden sentence:
1. Both the dead and the fixed ones have stopped changing, which means death to Japanese culture.
2. Pure colors are more social than patterned designs.
3. In the world of beauty, “weak and small” has its unique charm.
4. The interior design is to let the public identify with themselves, and realize the life culture in the place where they are in contact with the public.
5. The unique attribute of Japanese space is “change.” The state of creating an unfixed space and making a constantly changing space possible is also “empty” and “empty”.
6. Design should not be a commercial tool. It should be a job that reproduces the past in the present and expresses the intangible future tangibly.
