62 companies submitted 113 entries in the Group 1, the Office and Shop Category of the Working-use Products Category. 95 of these passed the first round of screening, and the second round of screening resulted in 46 products from 28 companies being selected for the G-Mark, giving an overall success rate of 40.7%.
Given the context of offices and shops, the products in this division show a high degree of maturity. In addition, the companies submitting entries have become regulars at this competition, so the overall level of the products in this division is quite high. For this reason, the evaluation standards are more severe than in other divisions.
First, our overall impression was that the dynamism of the era of growth was missing and that we could not help perceiving a certain sense of weakness, perhaps as a reflection of the sluggish socioeconomic environment after the collapse of the bubble economy. At first glance, the products demonstrated a high degree of accomplishment, but the main idea seemed to be product differentiation as a solution to specific problems, and it is regrettable that few products offered any fundamental reassessment and or reconstruction of working styles in the relevant domain of offices and shops and could serve as suggestions for further developments.
Environmental concerns have accelerated the introduction of ecological design and universal design concepts, necessarily making these concepts nearly an integral part of the picture. Given these technological manifestations, we hope that these technological attainments will lead to rapid introduction of a broader range of applications in society. Meanwhile, in the office furniture section, there were many products for the SOHO working style, which has received a great deal of attention in the course of the information technology revolution. All these developments give us a realistic picture of the trends of our era. The IT revolution has brought great changes to working styles not only in offices but also in shops, and we focused on what sorts of design solutions were being provided to deal with these changes.
Beginning last year, Judges were troubled by applications from amusement devices such as pachinko machines and slot machines. We were soon forced to conclude that although these kinds of products fell under the general category of "working-use," it was impossible to evaluate them along with products for offices and shops, and this led to a huge argument. As a result, we admitted that these devices can be elements of shops, but the basic argument was about the question of whether these unique aspects of our culture should be evaluated as contrivances for producing excitement on an individual basis, or, in other words, seeing the design of excitement as the organic basis for amusement devices. We would all like to state clearly that although we evaluated these devices this time, we believe that their essential nature and significance requires that they be judged in a separate division in the future.

 
EVALUATION OF DESIGNS

This year, the Gold Prize was awarded to a stool from Okamura Corporation. It is an extremely simple product that at first glance seems to be completely unchanged, but in fact has a revolving seat. Such contemporary design concepts as ecology-products and universal design allowed it to break through the fixed idea that "seats don't move" and provide the user with a joyous sense of comfort. The execution of this design is perfect in every respect, including its materials and functionality, usability, low cost, contributions to productivity, aesthetic sense, and applications to spaces and environments. This stool's main competitor for the Gold Prize was the Table Leg from Inter Office. This extremely simple design with a beautiful shape and superior function, is a frame that can support any tabletop. It consists of a cast aluminum case and three hollow legs, along with a thick rubber belt that fixes them in place. Ironically, the old and new significance of pairing a stool and a table leg was a subject of discussion until the very end.
What both products have in common is that they thoroughly reassess an area that tends to be treated lightly and overlooked, the fundamental relationship between people and tools, as high-quality proposals for working styles, and at the same time, they are beautifully finished in a highly accomplished manner. More than most, these products allow us to grasp the most fundamental power of design and the power of form.
The Small and Medium Enterprise Prize was won by Olfa's Cutter Knife Cartridge AL model. This AL model has its replacement blade in a cartridge, so that workers can maintain the same tension when replacing cartridges and don't have to interrupt the flow of their work. It received high marks for being a significant advance in safety and usability. The company also received high praise for the many "Cutter"-type products that followed upon the debut of the Cutter Knife Cartridge AL model in 1956 and for its unstinting position of encouraging development.
No products from this division qualified for the Universal Design Prize or the Ecology Design Prize.
Other products that attracted our attention and won high marks in the course of the screening process were Kokuyo's Meeting Table "KT-900" Series, Tapiro's ruler "Tapiro 1c," and Lion's binders for business documents, the HOOP series. All of them featured highly accomplished designs that balanced ease of use and ease of operation that matched their respective objectives. The HOOP series of binders made a favorable impression with its universal approach and the freshness of its coloring. In the Power Section, we liked Canon's "HT-280" and Sharp's "RZ-A141R/RZ-141," handheld terminals for reading barcodes and running order systems. Furthermore, the Beauty Set Chair "SC-DO 1" from Takara-Belmont was an extremely mature product for hair salons. It makes effective use of a new material, a colorful Skeleton-type gel mat, and it received a favorable evaluation as an attractive product combining functionality and fashion.

 
FUTURE CHALLENGES

The values of our era have begun to accelerate their gradual shift to the values of an information economy and society, driven by the IT revolution. The previously existing values that prioritize efficiency in all settings, including production, distribution, marketing, and daily life, will inevitably change. Under such circumstances, what kind of intangible power will allow humans to reclaim their "space," their leading role in production? Almost all the products this time already demonstrate the beginnings of a strong awareness of paradigm shifts in production, marketing, and design. However, we might ask ourselves what the people whose attention these products are supposed to attract, namely, the consumers themselves, really need to create their own life values, and what style means to them. For example, these rounds of screening left us with the impression that the solutions offered in response to the types of changes in working styles represented by the growth of the SOHO market were almost all based on the same concepts, no matter who the manufacturer was. All Judges had misgivings about the way in which the designs seemed to have been imposed on the genre. The line between suggestion and imposition is a thin one, and most designers have evidently gone too far in the direction of not exploding the prevailing images of what a workplace should look like. In one sense, they are too familiar with the goals of design, and they can't help adopting a cynical attitude. Another aspect of the same situation is that the design solutions for various personalized needs seemed to lack a certain something.
We wonder if we might not actually need products that increase the essential value of using them, creatively elicit a favorable image among users, and break through old barriers. Consumers are shifting away from a personal philosophy that values dependence to one that values autonomy, or, in other words, given the current design culture, they are practicing more sensitive consumption. In order to increase the desire for self-actualization among such consumers, designers will have to provide attractive materials (fashion parts) that give them room to participate in coordinating every aspect of their lives, including clothing, food, housing, and work, without forcing them to choose any particular option. Designers should promote the joy of creating a fashionable, simple, intelligent, sympathetic style in which the tools and environment inspire a multiplicity of fashion images. That is, it will be important for designers to position themselves as a total lifestyle industry and build up their power in the intangible aspects of design.