Tag: designer

Design Discoveries: Towards a DESIGN MUSEUM JAPAN

Japan House

15 May 2024 – 8 September 2024

14.06.2024

Incredibly, for a country associated with everything that is hi-tech, Japan does not have its own museum of design. At Japan House, the Design Discoveries exhibition puts together seven major designers to consider what they would contribute in the form of design treasures to such a museum. We get a chance to see the rich diversity of Japanese design and some of the unique and inspirational design stories in the land of the rising sun.

I went to this exhibition after my first visit to the Design Museum here in London. I realised that I needed to learn more about this subject, design. Design is all around us. I often wonder to myself if I can ever extract myself from everything that is human made and see real wilderness. The reality is that everything around us – especially in London – is designed. Even when you are in the parks, the parks have been sculpted to look like what they look like. And this exhibition was an illuminating look into the nature of design creativity, how it depends on a historical and geographic context and a rich history of tradition.

Here are the design treasures and my personal comments on each of the exhibitions:

Haburagin, the Clothing of the Noro Priestesses: Design to Protect the Wearer by Morinaga Kunihiko, Fashion Designer

Worn over 500 years ago, these garments enable spiritual safety for the wearer and the community. The stitching keeps out evil spirits. This exhibit was particularly fascinating. Because protection is what coordinates, what is at the basis of our human relationships. I was talking about this with one my best friends. Women want a man that protects them. Men want a woman that gives them protection from the world. Protection is the basic need of humankind. And, I am named after protection: Sunil Dutt who saved the actress Nargis from the fire that broke out on the set of the film ‘Mother India’, a film itself made to protect the honour of India from attacks from the West.

The spirituality of fashion design, fashion built for a community and its spiritual needs was an insight into a world where clothes are not about looking good, but which protect the mind and the self. A psychology of safety that you wear to enable mental functioning and health.

But what is sad about this garments is the reality behind the design: that sometimes the evil spirits creep in and then you no longer have protection.

The premise behind this design may seem archaic, but it continues into the present. I am partially Hindu and my background is that we pray to the Mother Goddess, the warrior, to protect us. And I wear a bracelet on my hand of Bastet with her cats, because she protects and brings good health.

This design is a treasure because it shows that what is important to humans from a design point of view is the fulfilment of of deep-rooted psychological needs such as security and wellbeing, mental health.

Whip Tops and Tops Inspired by Them: Toys as Our First Contact with Design by Tsujikawa Koichiro, Film Director

Here’s what the exhibition notes say:

‘Toys nurture the five senses and the child’s primal desires to touch, see and hear. They embody design in its most primitive form’.

There is a mystical property to the spinning tops because their motion mirrors the human life cycle. They remind us of death when they stop spinning.

What intrigued me about the spinning tops exhibition in terms of design is how rich, colourful and beautiful design is when adults are designing things for children. Because then, the love for design becomes one with the love of children. Adults are trying to initiate children into the world of the human imagination and they present everything that is best about it. And, the conscientious adult – like the designer of these spinning tops – does not stint with knowledge and the experience of life. The design that is made for children is to educate them into the passage and the meanings of life, each of its different stages. It is the greatest moment of sharing in culture: when you are trying to mould the mind of the inexperienced through your own experience. This is why these spinning tops – and design for children – is always so beautiful. The meaning of our human existence is to share our knowledge, our appreciation of beauty, our experience with the future and the next generation.

Jōmon Village Design: Design Found in 10,000-year-old Living Spaces by Tane Tsuyoshi, Architect

‘The Jōmon people designed based on a ring system. The structure of village society was a ring. For 800 years, others joined this ring and belonged to the ring’.

‘Houses were arranged in a circle with the entrances facing the centre. At the centre, there was a ring of stones. This central ring was a place where the living paid their respects to and mourned the dead’.

In my view, the elemental social unit of gathering and community is the ring. With the discovery of fire, the original human group would have ranged themselves in a circle around the fire. This is the only way of maximising the warmth of the flames. This ring design of the Jōmon people embodies the basic unit of organisation.

In our society, where there is no longer eye contact, much face to face interaction, where we sit or stand for hours by ourselves in an unnatural state of affairs, the ring stands for community, integration, oneness. It is a beautiful ideal that we have lost: that connection of human to human that is the secret longing of every heart that dreams for something better than what we have now.

This design is a treasure because it speaks to a fundamental human need for connection and community. It is a reminder of what we have lost in the modern age.

State-of-the-Art 3D Sportswear: Inspired by a Lantern Festival in Toyama by Sudō Reiko, Textile Designer

Before computers, there were humans. And what humans have, compared to a computer, are traditions, spirituality and the brilliance and resourcefulness of their brains. Culture.

Before computer-aided design, there was the festival where the designer made bamboo frames which transformed two dimensional drawings into three dimensional lanterns. And it was because of that that he was able to make three dimensional garments such as 3D-cut woven skiwear in the 1970s..

This design story resonated with me deeply because it shows the resourcefulness of creativity, the inspiration from tradition that prompts innovation. Creativity can be at its best when you are importing or transferring one design tradition into an innovation for another problem.

And, myself, I find constant inspiration from religion. When I was a child, my mother got me, out of everyone, to take the incense and burn it before the mother goddess, the warrior, in the prayer rituals of the house. Bowing my head and holding my hands joined together before her. We asked for her protection. And that moment comes backs to me over and over again and it has become one of the powerful inspirations for creativity and life. The work for the goddess, the work for the festival, the work for the people.

A design treasure because love is work and work is love.

Design Heaven: London College of Communication Shows 2023

Design Heaven: London College of Communication Shows 2023

13.06.2023

Show Two – Design and Screen: 14-17 June

I sauntered down to the London College of Communication Shows 2023 to see the animation videos. I sat in a packed theatre for a while recalling what it was like to be in that space and at a physical university again. However, after about two hours I wandered out and immediately outside there was a delight that I hadn’t expected – books and design projects created by the students. So I decided to have a look and to pick out some of the projects that I especially enjoyed. All of the projects were beautifully presented, lovely to look at, all stimulating. The students in this country’s university are blessed with great creativity and inspiration, as well as dedication and hard work.

Ananya Dalmia – Maachis

https://www.ananyadalmia.org/

A project by a fellow Indian from Delhi about the visual designs on Indian matchboxes. Ananya collects the matchboxes and has a considerably sized archive of the things. The matchboxes have to communicate visually because India is a visual culture and also because it has a high proportion of illiterates and people that have very different languages from each other, so any text-based message becomes problematic. My favourite in the show, for obvious reasons. I loved her drawings of the goddess Kali and the eyes with the bindi in the middle – it is an obvious fact that a lot of these matchboxes would be in a religious area for lighting incense. Ananya writes ‘these pocket-sized time capsules not only document historical and cultural themes but also embody the kitsch style of India’ and that they embody ‘a visual language that celebrates culture, uniqueness and vibrancy’.

Kate Ruscher – The Game of Life: America Edition

https://www.kateruscher.com/

On her website, Kate writes that she began her creative journey at just two years old. The design she put forward was dark, unique and thought-provoking. Her board game design is based on the premise that life is precarious in America because of guns, so ‘what do you want to do IF you grow up?’ The scenarios in the game are based on real tragedies. As she writes ‘While the board is full of colorful tiles, the black background reflects the dark reality of this uniquely American problem beneath the surface’. This was perhaps one of the most political of the designs and the one that tackled social problems the most (although, in fairness, there was another design about how beauty standards affect women, too). As a transformative message that brings the lived reality of gun crime immediately to the viewer and reader, this was a very successful piece.

Helen Greenwood – This is time for us

Instagram – helen.greenwood_design

This project explored how time could be represented through depictions of the motions of the solar system, but also how Helen’s ‘personal time has been shaped by love and loss’. The book that she presented was done in black with very ordered and controlled illustrations dominated by geometry. This was an interesting project because, of course, for aeons, humans have charted their passage through life with reference to celestial bodies, astrology being one of the main examples. Of particular interest was how a modern-day individual was trying to make a relationship to the wider cosmos through a frame of reference that was non-mythological and non-religious, that was scientific in scope and intent. Can we only relate to the whole of the existence of time and matter through such a rational lens? Or was the non-rational (and rebellious) part the inspired creation linking text and image, which relies on imagination and the linking of things that modern day, secular society has deemed as largely non-related?

Tung Dang – Bloom

https://www.behance.net/songsongtung

A beautiful book full of botanical illustrations by a designer originally from Vietnam. The book is based on the 5 stages of grief theory and is intended as a ‘spiritual friend’. The style struck me as quite restrained, subtle and sophisticated. However, there was substance, since Tung says that the flowers represent resilience: ‘not matter how damaged they are, they will grow and bloom again’. This design is interesting because we live in an an age of environmental disaster, with an ‘instability and uncertainty’ that Tung references when he talks about the survival power of the flowers. Yet we can always look to the power of nature for inspiration and, yes, healing. Anyone that has felt the healing power of trees, plants and animals will love this design and feel an emotional connection with the human being connected with earth, his home. This was one of the most universal and enduring messages in the exhibition, a message of survival against the odds.

Tszka Auyeung – Technology Sobriety

Instagram – @_ousansui

Beautiful designs of furniture, resplendent with all the colours of the rainbow, which contrasts with the transparency of glass. Perhaps we should call it ‘prismatic furniture’ for it reminds me of Newton’s discovery that a transparent prism contained within it all the colours in the spectrum. This project combined AI to create home environments, so it is very current and demonstrates how a responsible and controlled use of AI can transform design possibilities, and ‘lead to more creative and innovative designs’ as Tszka writes (and demonstrates so wonderfully). The future of AI must be that it is subject to human control and inspiration. It is a tool, not a substitute for what makes us uniquely us.

Jingjing Lu – Visual Horizon of Life Philosophy

https://julielu720.wixsite.com/atalanta-jing

This design was intended to make philosophy more comprehensible by presenting it in visual form, a departure from verbal and text-based communication styles. We often use visual presentation in the form of pie charts and bar graphs for maths to help us more readily understand what is abstract, so why not apply the same principle to philosophy, which is also abstract and complicated? What made this project unique for me, was not only its brave originality, but also the fact that it combined Oriental and Western philosophy, so it had that global frame of reference which is so attractive to me. The book and materials were beautifully presented in pink and also relied on a subtle and sophisticated aesthetic.

Michelle Liu – Shapes of Fortunes

http://www.michellelnt.com/

Michelle’s design is ‘a brand that provides a range of shapes that are associated with different types of good fortune’. As form, each shape was unique and visually interesting – they are formed out of plastic, I believe, and are models or sculptures. The contemplation of each shape should be interesting. Michelle studied in Hong Kong and is influenced by Chinese art, which makes me think that the shapes draw a resonance in the long historical tradition of the Chinese looking at oracle bones and their shapes in order to determine the future and success, a message of comfort for the human from the non-human. Why is it that a shape – or any inanimate thing for that matter – can be associated with the idea of luck? Luck exists – we see it all around us (call it fate or what you will). Can it be materialised in concrete form and how? The shapes show us why someone would think this is the case and why they believe that they can capture the fleeting and elusive forms of luck (or fate).