The Communication Design Category, which began soliciting entries this year, has not been part of the Good Design Award competition before, since the competition centers on product design. It began with a suggestion to add a Graphic Design Category.
However, there are plenty of competitions for graphic design, and the number of entries is clearly greater than the number for product design. In addition, it is closely connected with advertising, publishing, and other areas. As a result, we were anxious about our prospects for discovering good designs that met the requirements of the Good Design Code. I have participated in Good Design Adjudications for more than ten year, but I have never before been so nervous and excited about one. Until now, almost all the Screening Committee members have been product designers, and we rather looked forward to the Adjudications. The experience of hearing about the strengths and flaws of an exhibited item from product designers was a great educational experience that deepened the product knowledge of graphic designers such as myself.

This year was different. It was an adjudication of a field that I was directly familiar with. There was no temporal or psychological leeway for us Screening Committee members to determine a clear Adjudication Code. Fewer products and works were entered here than in other competitions, and we were forced to acknowledge once more that the Communication Design Category had received insufficient publicity. There was no reason to expect that the newly organized category would stand on its own under these circumstances. Most of the entries were at quite a low level, so the Screening Committee actively looked for "suitable entries."
Then all the Screening Committee members took another look at the recommended items, reinvestigating them from the top down. During this process, we somehow came up with the bare outline of something like an Adjudication Code for Communication Design Category of the Good Design Award. We tried to be as generous as possible in selecting entries for the G-Mark, and we found good qualities in a variety of aspects. However, we saw a convergence of opinions among the Screening Committee members in deciding which entries would receive prizes. If the winning entries exemplify the Adjudication criteria in the Communication Design Category, they will serve as useful references for next year's entrants. We can deem this to be the greatest success of this year's Adjudication.

CANDIDATES FOR THE GOLD PRIZE AND THE INTERACTION PRIZE

The entries chosen as candidates for the special prizes included the concert Small Fish, set up so that hearing-impaired people can participate in it; Without Thought, a workshop which intellectualizes fundamental design; and Gangoo, which recombines items that one can find at a 100-yen shop. These projects were chosen not so much for being graphic as for evidence of deep thought about the true nature of communication. The three works chosen are far removed from the original objective of the Good Design Award, which was to evaluate industrial products. Now that industrial society is coming to an end, the Good Design Award will have to change as well. Unless we seriously consider fundamental good design, and not just design as a product of the industrial age, the Good Design Award and maybe even design itself will come to a sorry end.
The Communication Design Category, which appears to have been added to the fringes of product design, has actually demonstrated its value to product design. Instead of designing products or industrial goods, we ought to be designing communication between people or between people and things.

The activities of Small Fish began with the notion that the hearing-impaired should not be excluded from music, and they have grown to the point that hearing-impaired people can sponsor concerts. The use of headphones and body sonics allows them to create tunes easily by manipulating computer graphics generated by sounds.
The workshop Without Thought, which allows mostly in-house designers to work freely on product design has even gained a reputation overseas. These kinds of concepts will be especially needed in the society of the future and in post-industrial design.
Gangoo, created by two foreign designers currently resident in Japan, one from the United Kingdom and one from New Zealand, has questioned and taken a second look at the essential nature of items.

None of these three projects would have been included within the parameters of design twenty years ago, or even considered for the Good Design Award. The era when design was talked about in terms of details is over. In the future, design will not be valid unless it is conceived on the basis of fundamentals.

One day, the Communication Design Category may be preeminent among all the Categories of the Good Design Award and may even serve as a driving force for design.

Hideya Kawakita
Chief Jury of Communication Design Category
Art Director, JAPAN BELIER ART CENTER INC.