Design and Media

Contemporary media has developed fast, but the actual ‘media’ that connected such media and people is ‘design’.
The Design History Workshop Japan has held symposia on the themes such as gender, museum, and social and historical nature of design. This year, we focus on the term ‘media7 and discuss the relations between media and design from varied angles up to today.

12 July 2008, at 14.00-17.00
Tsuda Hall, room T101,T102
tsudahall.com/THHP2/mainindex.htm
fee 1,000 yen for non-member / 500 yen for student / members free

Programme
13:30 Regislation
14:00 Habara Shukuro (design critic) on ‘readability and dignity in typography’
14:30 Miyazaki Yoshiro (Honorary Fellow, Chiba University) on ‘What media design has produced: a history of Life magazine’
15:00 Harada Yasushi (Associate Professor, Chiba Institute of Technology) on ‘Methods of visual design, and display as a pretext’
15:30 Moriyama Tomoe (Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo)
16:00 Discussion
17:00 Close

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Design, Text and Context: Design History for Whom?

If history is a constructed tale, narrated from a specific viewpoint with particular concerns in mind, how has design’s story been told? At the turn of the last century, the design historian was almost the craftsman himself who dominated the academic study of the art of design. In the years between the First and Second World Wars, design history became a story of progress—the advancement of modern design—as written by modernist ideologues like Sir Nikolaus Pevsner and Herbert Read. This positivist narrative came under attack in the 1970s with the rise of Cultural Studies, and today, design historians practice our craft mindful of the need to recognize a multiplicity of viewpoints and experiences of design as practice, product and way of working in the world. But how do we write our histories of design for today, and what is our goal in composing these narratives? Should design histories increase intercultural and transnational understanding? Make apparent economic interactions between corporations and consumers? Benefit designers and producers? Educate the public about design through exhibitions and experiential learning? And if the answer is “all of these”, how might we best address these multiple audiences? This symposium is an opportunity to discuss these and other questions in the contemporary practice of design history.

16 July 2007, at 13.00-17.00
Saitama University, Tokyo Station College
fee 1,500 yen for non-member / 500 yen for student
Co-organised by Graduate School of Cultural Science, Saitama University

Programme
Part 1: Keynote Speech
John Heskett (Professor at Hong Kong Polytechnic University)

Part 2: Research Reports
Ekuan Shoji (Professor at Nihon University)
Nagasawa Tadanori (Design Consultant, Professor at Musashino Art University)

Part 3: Panel Discussion
Panelists : John Heskett, Ekuan Shoji, Nagasawa Tadanori
Coordinator : Iguchi Toshino (Professor at Saitama University, Deputy-Chair of the Design History Workshop Japan)

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Gender and Modern Design: Women as Producers and Women as Consumers

Twentieth-century modernisms have long been a staple—perhaps the central— topic of design history research, but much of this research only makes apparent the degree to which the history of modernism is a masculine one, formed from a perspective focused on the often more public achievements of male designers. Beginning in the late 1980s, scholars like Cheryl Buckley and Penny Sparke began re-visiting canonical modernist design histories, re-examining source materials from a feminist perspective, and asking how women’s experiences as designers, producers and consumers embodied, interpreted and challenged modernist ideology. This symposium on “Gender and Modern Design” sought to promote similar inquiry into the gendered nature of modernist design practices among historians in Japan, with particular attention to new research on women as producers and users.

22 July 2006, at 13.30-17.15
The Museum of Modern Art, Saitama
Co-organised by Graduate School of Cultural Science, Saitama University
Sponsored by British Council Japan

Programme
Part 1: Keynote Speech
Penny Sparke (Professor at Kingston University, UK)

Part 2: Research Reports
Tsunemi Mikiko (Associate Professor at Kyoto Women’s University)
Jinno Yuki (Associate Professor at Kanto Gakuin University)

Part 3: Panel Discussion
Panelists : Penny Sparke, Tsunemi Mikiko, Jinno Yuki
Coordinator : Suga Yasuko (Associate Professor at Tsuda College)

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Design Museums in Japan: Present and Future

The practice of design not only forms our visual sphere and material world, but also provides us with a medium for living our daily lives and constructing social and cultural identities. This symposium concentrated on issues of collection and exhibition of design as cultural medium, and reviewed historical and current examples of design museum practices. The symposium also provided a springboard for rich discussion from a variety of viewpoints and experiences into the form that design museums should take in Japan in the new century.

2 July 2005, at 12.30-16.00
International Design Center, Nagoya
Co-organised by Project Studies for the Promotion of Human and Social Science, Japan Society for the Promotion of Science
Sponsored by International Design Center, Nagoya
Supported by Society for Cultural Studies in Body, Design, Media, Music and Text, Kobe University

Programme
Part 1: Keynote Speech
Kimura Kazuo (Professor and Dean at Nagoya University of Arts and Sciences)

Part 2: Research Reports
Hashimoto Keiko (Independent Curator and Researcher)
Kim Sang-Kyu (Curator, Hangaram Design Museum, Seoul Arts Center, Korea)

Part 3: Panel Discussion
Panelists : Kimura Kazuo, Hashimoto Keiko, Kim Sang-Kyu
Coordinator : Iguchi Toshino (Associate Professor at Saitama University, Deputy-Chair of the Design History Workshop Japan)

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Japanese Design in the Construction Period after the War

As was the case for many nations after the Second World War, postwar economic recovery irrevocably changed the environment and practices of daily life in Japan, and it is imperative that we understand and address the immense formative power design in this process. Taking place a half-century later, this symposium invited major participants in design research, education, promotion and practice to discuss their experiences and re-examine the role of design in shaping Japan during this period.

3 July 2004, at 13.00-17.30
Tsuda College

Programme
Part 1: Keynote Speeches
Toshimitsu Isao (President at Oita Prefectural College of Arts and Culture)
Hino Eiichi (Professor at Jissen Woman’s College)
Koseki Rikiya (Professor Emeritus at Takaoka National College)
Sone Yasumi (former Professor at Kinki University)

Part 2: Panel Discussion
Panelists : Toshimitsu Isao, Hino Eiichi, Koseki Rikiya , Sone Yasumi
Coordinator : Nakayama Shuichi (Professor at Kobe University, Chair of the Design History Workshop Japan)

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Design History in the Twenty First Century

The Design History Workshop Japan had its inaugural meeting on 22 November 2002 at Kobe University, and commemorated its launch with a two-part symposium. For the first part of the symposium, we invited Prof. Jonathan M. Woodham, a past Chair of the Design History Society which was set up in 1997 in Britain and founding Director of the Centre for Design History Research at the University of Brighton, to reflect on the course that design history has taken as an area of research and an academic discipline, and to suggest directions to address now and in the future. The second half of the symposium was a discussion of the role and direction of the newly-formed DHWJ, beginning with a conversation between Woodham and Prof. Nakayama Shuichi, DHWJ Chair and Professor at Kobe University, then expanding to a lively and fruitful general discussion between all present.

4 October 2003, at 13.00-17.30
Saitama University
Co-organised by Graduate School of Cultural Science, Saitama University
Sponsored by British Council Japan

Programme
Part 1: Keynote Speech
Building on the Past, Looking to the Future: Design History in the Twenty First Century / Jonathan M. Woodham (Professor at the University of Brighton, UK)

Part 2: Panel Discussion
Panelists : Jonathan M. Woodham (Professor at the University of Brighton, UK), Nakayama Shuichi (Professor at Kobe University, Chair of the Design History Workshop Japan)
Coordinator : Iguchi Toshino (Associate Professor at Kitakyushu University, Deputy-Chair of the Design History Workshop Japan)

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