Designing Design

Stellvertretend für eine neue Generation von Designern in Japan erweist der 1958 geborene Kenya Hara seinen Mentoren Reverenz, wenn er lange vernachlässigte japanische Symbole und Bilder in seine Arbeiten einfliessen lässt. In "Designing Design" bringt Kenya Hara dem Leser die Bedeutung der Leere in der ästhetischen und philosophischen Tradition Japans nahe und führt anhand seiner eigenen Arbeiten vor, wie sich diese Kultur im zeitgenössischen Design umsetzen lässt. Kenya Hara ist, neben Naoto Fukasawa, eine der führenden Gestalterpersönlichkeiten Japans und machte auch mit Wanderausstellungen wie "Re-Design: The Daily Products of the 21st Century" auf sich aufmerksam. Representing a new generation of designers in Japan, Kenya Hara pays tribute to his mentors, using long overlooked Japanese icons and images in much of his work. In Designing Design, he impresses upon the reader the importance of “emptiness” in both the visual and philosophical traditions of Japan and its application to design, made visible by means of numerous examples from his own work. “To understand something is not to be able to define it or describe it. Instead, taking something that we think we already know and making it unknown thrills us afresh with its reality and deepens our understanding of it,” Hara says of his design philosophy. Designing Design gives the reader an understanding of said philosophy as well as opens their mind to new ways of thinking. Hara, born 1958, is a Japanese graphic designer and professor at the Musashino Art University. He for instance designed the opening and closing ceremony programs for the Nagano Winter Olympic games 1998. In 2001, Hara enrolled as a board member for the Japanese label MUJI and has considerably molded the identity of this successful corporation as communication and design advisor ever since.