This is the third year Shunji Yamanaka has served as Jury Chair for the Kokuyo Design Award. He talked to us about his ideas and way of thinking concerning the theme for the 2009 award.

――Would you say a little about the meaning behind the theme “foundations”?

“Foundations” are the things in daily living that give us cause to say, “I’m glad I have this,” or “What would I do without this?” or even “I didn’t realize just how important this was.” They are foundations that give us strength or “places” where everyone can come together. They are starting points for something new, bases and important roots for the self. The idea behind this theme is that we want applicants to make discoveries by taking a purer look at such foundations.

――Are you more conscious of commercialization?

Yes. This time we have also designated a product genre. We want applicants to focus on fields such as stationary for school and the home and furniture for use at work as opposed to “something akin to stationary.” The Kokuyo Design Award has succeeded in commercializing numerous designs, but this time around we want to clarify what Kokuyo wants to do at the present juncture and get out a message that says “let’s work towards commercialization together.”

――I think it’s difficult to come up with novel, unprecedented proposals. Themes tend to narrow perspectives, resulting in works that seem familiar. How do you get the applicants to expand their perspective?

For example, the “foundations” viewpoint doesn’t necessarily have to entail a foundation that’s applicable to everyone. Asking the applicants to create something that everyone needs would narrow their perspective considerably, and we would get textbook-like responses. That’s not what we are after. The meaning of “foundation” can be personal. It can even be relatively minor things in the daily life of the applicant or those close to her. After all, taking a deep look at ordinary occurrences might unexpectedly uncover something significant.

――Although commercialization is a premise of the award, you don’t want the applicants to be swayed by that, correct?

That’s right. The competition is meaningful in that individuals can apply without having to be swayed by market conditions. We want the applicants to start from what is a “foundation” for them. The ultimate result would be a scenario where something an applicant firmly believes to be important becomes some sort of trigger and leads others to see its importance, even if they didn’t notice at first. Of course, we also want them to properly consider the research, testing and structure that would be required in transforming the idea into a product.

――Could one also approach it from the idea “foundations are not really necessary”?

Actually, it’s not necessary to begin with a foundation that already exists or is perfect. Moreover, the most important things for human beings are not limited to the most useful things. However, we very clearly do not want applicants to make the kind of irresponsible design that one often finds in competitions, where the applicant seems to say, “Well, I guess it wouldn’t hurt if this product were on the market.”

――The Kokuyo Design Award is well-recognized overseas too. I imagine it was very difficult to convey the theme of “foundations” (yoridokoro) in English.

It’s certainly difficult to express all the nuances of the Japanese word. Although tokoro (space) is included in yoridokoro, the word is not necessarily used exclusively in respect to places and spaces, and is also used in regard to things, the mind, and feelings too. We worked quite hard coming up with something to convey the breadth of yoridokoro.
In the end we settled on “foundations” to convey the theme of yoridokoro. It does not necessarily refer to an actual object. We don’t mind if the applicants freely expand on that meaning; in fact, we expect them too.

――Last year Kokuyo commercialized the award winners Kamikire, Tidbit, and Beetle Tip. Kokuyo’s proactive stance towards commercialization is apparent there.

The commercialization ratio of award-winning works is actually extremely low in corporate sponsored competitions. The award winners do not usually match the current needs of the corporation, and those in charge of development at those companies don’t have much motivation to commercialize those designs. The competitions tend to end up treating the results as a reference for the future, such as “This work shows an interesting way of thinking,” or “We may be able to use it in the future.” To put it another way, the key to commercialization depends on how the company or those in charge of development at the company respond to the enthusiasm of the applicants. That’s why last year too we had those in charge of development participate in the judging stage of the competition where they proceeded by discussing such matters as “What would happen if this were made?” and “What technology would be needed?” while examining the works.