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2005 Outline

Jury members and comments

Shunji Yamanaka Vice-Chairman of the Jury, Good Design Award 2005

As a product, the Hypodermic Needle for Insulins that was awarded this year's Grand Prize is unarguably both groundbreaking and highly exceptional. Whether its design is worthy of recognition, however, was the subject of debate even among the judges. To make this argument requires a detailed debate on the subject of what design actually is, and I would like to use this opportunity to offer a short explanation of my own personal opinion on this matter.

What makes the Good Design Awards different from the ordinary selection of outstanding products is the stress it places on features that appeal to human sensibilities. Central to this is an aesthetic perspective. There was agreement among the judges that for the design of an object to be evaluated highly, mere attractiveness is not enough. In addition to its aesthetic visual effect, products were evaluated on their overall appeal to human sensibilities, including touch, comprehensibility, and comfort. Moreover, this effect had to be achieved at an appropriate cost, productivity, safety, and consideration for the environment. A consensus was reached on these points, at least among designers.

An appeal to human sensibilities is an area that is difficult to handle in engineering terms. Engineering has its roots in the natural sciences, which have as yet to offer more than a rudimentary explanation for human sensibility. Of course a wide range of research is underway using psychological, cognitive, and sociological methods. As yet, however, very few mathematical models or computer simulations have been developed that are capable of reproducing human psychological behavior and its outcomes, and no objectively verifiable indicators have been established. Accordingly, engineering frameworks are unable to design an appeal to human sensibilities with any degree of success, and also it is difficult to evaluate the results using engineering frameworks.

Precisely for this reason, creating objects in a way that relies on the sensibility of the person who makes them is of great importance. Designers have learned many such methods from the fine arts. Whether through literature, music, or sculpture, an effective appeal to sensibilities is something that has been developed throughout the long history of fine art. The mainstay of such methods is a sensibility polished to perfection by the artist, who achieves his or her effect as the result of their mastery of technique. At the same time, offering a chance to encounter finished works and generating criticism are also vital in raising the level of popular sensibility. In other words, the propagation of skills and discriminative abilities, a method that has deep cultural roots, will raise the level of sensibility within society. When this method is applied to product design, with designers refining their own sensibilities and evaluating products on their appeal to human sensibility, it focuses discriminative abilities and actually makes this happen.

Let me attempt a discussion of the evaluation of the Hypodermic Needle for Insulins from two different perspectives. The first is whether or not it really does possess those features appealing to human sensibility that should be well regarded in terms of design. The second is whether it is appropriate or not for these to be evaluated by designers.

The main function of this hypodermic needle is to alleviate pain. Pain is clearly a type of sensation, and as a result the product succeeds in offering users reassurance and comfort. Let us allow that it possesses a function that appeals to human sensibility. It is accordingly possible to evaluate this product as having the same effect as that aimed at by design.

The question remains, however, as to whether or not this can be judged by designers, the reason being that this product solves the problem it confronts by a totally non-artistic means. Because a thin enough needle exceeds the degree of resolution of those human sensory receptors called pain sites, it can penetrate the skin painlessly. This is a known scientific fact, and the production method used to make this product a reality was also achieved almost solely through engineering. Is it really meaningful to use highly refined discriminative sensibilities to judge a problem-solving strategy that involves no cultural methods?

I have absolutely no disagreement with the award of the Grand Prize to the Hypodermic Needle for Insulins. That is because it possesses attributes worthy of recognition in the design sphere. If designers judge this within their own categories, however, they must accept that a purely engineering approach is also a part of their own job.

Absolutely none of the artistic methods that are the strong points of conventional professional designers went into this year's Grand Prize-winning product. None of the more than 3,000 products created through the efforts of designers could beat it in the judging. The designers who took part in the voting feel they should take this fact very seriously.

Engineering and artistic methods are mutual and complementary in manufacturing. The design of an industrial product depends on engineering to the extent that it can be explained in scientific terms, and on art to the extent that it cannot. In this context, there is no reason for the design profession always to stand solely on the artistic side of this divide. Naturally, some people feel that product designers are actually in the engineering field. Viewed in historical terms, both fields have always been fluid, and the scope of designers' work has changed from side to side. Perhaps since Raymond Loewy, many designers have tended to tilt toward the artistic side in their work. But I think that prior to this, making a painless injection needle would have been just as much a designer's work as making a comfortable chair.