Designing
Design
by Kenya Hara
Lars Müller Publishers, Baden, Switzerland,
2007
474 pp., illus. , 50 b/w, 400 col. Trade,
39.90 Euros
ISBN: 978-3-03778-105-0.
Reviewed by Michael R. (Mike) Mosher
Saginaw Valley State University
mosher@svsu.edu
In our hands, a shiny white book. It embodies
a cool, crisp aesthetic of whiteness,
which is the subject of a heartfelt essay
by this notable Japanese designer, found
in the center of the book. Kenya Hara
discusses white as a design concept, in
relation to chaos-producing entropy, and
in contrast to black type or powerful
red symbols. He discusses white in the
context of Japanese color theory in the
Heian period, 794 to 1185. The piece closes
with his series of white-on-white magazine
covers, photographs of barely-there objects.
There is a simplicity and economy to Haras
ad campaign called "Nothing, Yet
Everything" for MUJI (a Japanese
department store that appears comparable
to IKEA), its motto "Lower priced
for a reason". The ads show wide,
sparse landscape vistas with the MUJI
logo perched atop the horizon like distant
Stonehenge. Shots are taken around the
world, from ice floes to picturesque villages
in Cameroon and Morocco. The designer
advocates an emptiness like that of a
bowl, and the simplicity of a traditional
Japanese tearoom. One can almost hear
HaraI imagine him soft-spoken and
patientselling his ideas through
the use of attractive metaphors to the
corporate bigwigs.
He has been the organizer of exhibitions
of the redesign of everyday things that
resulted in startling solutions: ice cream
dispensed in various shapes, juice containers
like fruit (banana, kiwi, strawberry)
skins, and pasta shapes rethought by various
architects. His portfolio gives us elegantly
simple hotel, rice and wine packaging,
and a series of symbols of sports for
the Beijing 2008 Olympics that show active
figures like ancient caligrammes.
In one essay, Japan is described as a
pachinko game into which many Eurasian
influences drop. In his historical essay
"What Is Design?", Hara traces
aesthetics from Ruskin and Morris through
"The Prank of Postmodernism",
with kind words for both Droog Design
and John Maeda. He expresses his sadness
about the 2005 Expo that veered from its
original green ethic (its motto was "Byond
Development: Rediscovering Natures
Wisdom", and was to be held in a
forest) through a series of commercial
compromises.
Hara has delivered thoughtful museum signage,
soft fabric signs in a hospital, and proposed
puffy vinyl roadsigns. He is a proponent
of haptic design, using sensations of
touch as well as sight. A disposable tissue
is embossed like a snakes shed skin,
a book cover is given a blistered, braille-like
pattern, and similar nubs upon a piece
of paper turns it into a pachinko game
that uses water drops. We are shown a
hanging lamp like a wig, a touchable gel
doorknob like a cartoon characters
hand and a quivering translucent gel remote
control. Weirdest of all is a "Moms
Baby", a fetal multi-socket electric
cord that evokes both the umbilical cord
and suckling. Want a few of those lying
around your carpeted floor?
Work by Haras students at the Masahimo
Art University Department of Science and
Design includes nature on the ground around
the Shimanto river photographed in the
shape of footprints, to trigger in viewers
the sensation of walking barefoot. The
river gets depicted by them as an asphalt
highway, and a parking lot where it is
dammed. One student cuts photographs of
it into cubes. The students learn that
nature, in both its emptiness and its
small details, becomes another medium
in the hands of a thoughtful designer
like Kenya Hara.