2018

The Industrial Revolution that took place in England in the late 19th century established an industrial society based on mass production and mass consumption.This took away the jobs of many “handmade craftsmen.
Against the backdrop of such a society, the Arts and Crafts Movement was launched and modern design was born, eventually establishing the profession of designer. Later, at the World Design Conference held in Tokyo in 1960, the “Tokyo Declaration” proclaimed the word “design,” which had been used differently in each country, as a common concept throughout the world.

　The Tokyo Declaration: Convinced that the coming age will require even more powerful human creative activity than today in order to establish an authoritative human life, we designers are aware of the seriousness of our responsibility. -- “We are aware of the seriousness of the responsibility we bear as designers.
　That's a great declaration. Designers are the ones who will open up the future! A declaration filled with hope. It was almost 60 years ago. But I don't think the designers at that time had the slightest idea that the information revolution of the 21st century would be triggered by the computer, which had been developed several years before, and that it would take away the designers' jobs.

　Now, the information revolution is taking away designers' jobs. In particular, artificial intelligence, as represented by Adobe sensei, has far surpassed human information processing capability and is evolving at an accelerated pace. What a mess! The opposite of the Tokyo Declaration's statement, “Establish an authoritative human life,” is now happening. However, artificial intelligence is an expert in providing correct answers to problems. The trouble with our lives is that we have to answer questions that have no correct answers. That is why we need creativity. I believe that creativity is “the ability to propose a highly satisfactory solution to a question that has no right answer. And I believe that at the core of this is a “playful-heads. On the other hand, the “playful-heads” creates a feeling of happiness for everyone by breaking through the status quo, even though it is groundless and out of the ordinary. What is happiness? This year's theme for our ongoing exploration of how creativity relates to human happiness is “playfulness.

　The question is how much we play with our “work-heads” to see how much we seal them off. I hope that this year's theme will be a little Tokyo Declaration in today's society, in which we will realize that the coming age will require us to be more and more creative for the sake of human happiness, and that it is the job of us designers to make that happen.

［Designers]　
　Naoko Akai (KOSÉ)
　Kiyoshi Ishida (underline graphic)　
　Hiroyuki Ishiura (Suntory)
　Taiki Inoue (Sony)　
　Kazushige Oue (OUE DESIGN)
　Takashi Kagotani (Dai Nippon Printing)
　Masahiko Kimura (GK Graphics)
　Kaori Kondo (Shiseido)
　Yuki Sugiyama（Hakuhodo)　
　Kenichi Tanaka（Cotori Design Standard)
　Mayumi Tomita (GK Graphics)
　Kenichi Hirose (Sony)　
　Sumiko Matsuda (Tiger & Design)
　Shigeru Yamazaki (KOSÉ)
　Itsuro Yumoto (Kao)

［News of 2018]
　First ever U.S.-North Korea summit held
　Torrential rain in western Japan, Hokkaido earthquake
　Reform of work style