Guest posts

3 Notable Design Books for Summer Reading: Daijiro Mizuno

By Daijiro Mizuno July 24, 2012

Guest blogger Daijiro Mizuno—design researcher, educator, and writer—shares from Japan three notable design titles published during 2012. — SK

Daijiro Mizuno

Guest blogger: Daijiro Mizuno (Kyoto, Japan)

Profile

In addition to the three design books he notes below, Daijiro also sent us news of the recent debut of the fashion design criticism magazine he edits, Fashionista, which features articles on Japanese and international fashion designers and institutions—from Anrealage in Tokyo to the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York—and reviews of fashion exhibitions.

ゲストブロガー　水野大二郎　ーデザインリサーチャー、慶應義塾大学専任講師ーが2012年に出版された面白い書籍を紹介します。

以下の３つの書籍に加え、蘆田裕史と共同で責任編集したファッションの批評誌Fashionstaも興味深い一冊です。Fashionstaでは、日本や海外のファッションデザイナーや研究者を紹介し、FITで開催された『Japan Fashion Now』展にも出展した Anrealageへのインタビューなども含め大変興味深い内容になっています。ご興味のある方は併せてご覧ください。現在は、ジュンク堂オンラインにて購入可能です。

15 Years of Media Arts

Kurando Furuya, ed.

This book celebrates the last 15 years of media arts in Japan. In 1997 the first Japan Media Arts Festival was held, sponsored by the Council of Cultural Affairs in Japan. Since that time the festival has been held on an annual basis to encourage the further development of media arts. Over the past 15 years the environment surrounding media arts has changed significantly; this book should be read as a testimony, or a continuing negotiation, by those who work in the fields of anime, manga, games, motion graphics, Internet art, and mixed media arts.

メディア芸術祭とは、文化庁メディア芸術祭実行委員会が主催しているメディアアートの祭典。メディア芸術の創造とその発展を図ることを目的に1997年から毎年実施されている。この15年間で、メディアをとりまく状況は劇的に変化した。作品を振り返ることは、社会の変化に対しての芸術家たちによる交渉を再読することでもあろう。メディアアート/アニメ/マンガ/ゲーム/映像/インターネットの６つのカテゴリーから、１５年間にわたるメディアアートの進化を紹介。

Girls’ Fashion in Japanese Manga

Mana Takemura

Japanese manga has been a subject of critical inquiry, or a subject of desire, for many male scholars, including Hiroki Azuma. However, there have been very few books on girls’ fashion in manga from the female perspective. Characters appearing in manga dress themselves to construct a narrative about themselves (reminding me of what Walter. J. Ong argues in relation to “orality”). Are manga illustrators just as creative as fashion designers? This book introduces the relationship between characters and fashion to provide a unique perspective on girls’ manga and fashion design.

マンガはこれまでにも東浩紀や大塚英志ら男性の研究者によって、分析の、あるいは欲望の対象となってきた。しかし、マンガのキャラクター、特に少女のファッションに焦点をあてて、女性の立場から紹介されたものは少ない。物語の中でキャラクターが着る服は、キャラクターを構成し物語をわかりやすくする重要な要素になっている。キャラクターとファッションの関係性などを紹介しつつ、少女マンガとファッションデザインについて考えることができる楽しい一冊である。

Japan Japanese

Helmut Schmid

Helmut Schmid (b. 1942), a renowned Austrian-born graphic designer, currently lives and continues to work vigorously in Japan (Osaka). Without question, his book Typography Today, released in 1980, is one of the most significant contributions to the development of typographic design in the last few decades, but Japan Japanese is also a unique book, which revisits Schmid’s early work (1968–73) on the Swiss typography and photography magazine Typografische Monatsblätter. As a look at the precursors to the contents of Typography Today, the book offers a visual historiography of contemporary typography.

ヘルムート・シュミットはオーストリア生まれ(1942)のグラフィックデザイナー・タイポグラファーである。現在、大阪に在住しながら勢力的に活動を展開し、日本では大塚製薬「ポカリスエット」、資生堂「ELIXIR」、「IPSA」のロゴデザインを手掛けたことでも知られるが、1980年に発表された書籍TYPOGRAPHY TODAYこそが重要な一冊であり、それに至るまでの文脈理解こそが今学ばれるべきだろう。この意味のいて、 japan japaneseはスイスのティポグラフィシェ・モナーツブレッテル(TM)誌に連載（1968年1月～1973年3月）した内容をまとめた大変資料価値の高い一冊である。

comments powered by Disqus

Announcements

Now is Better by Stefan Sagmeister

Now is Better

By Stefan Sagmeister
Publisher: Phaidon Press
Published: October 2023

Combining art, design, history, and quantitative analysis, transforms data sets into stunning artworks that underscore his positive view of human progress, inspiring us to think about the future with much-needed hope.

Order the book.

Design Emergency: Building a Better Future by Alice Rawsthorn and Paola Antonelli

Design Emergency: Building a Better Future

By Alice Rawsthorn and Paola Antonelli
Publisher: Phaidon Press
Published: May 2022

Rawsthorn and Antonelli tell the stories of the remarkable designers, architects, engineers, artists, scientists, and activists who are at the forefront of positive change worldwide. Focusing on four themes—Technology, Society, Communication, and Ecology—the authors present a unique portrait of how our great creative minds are developing new design solutions to the major challenges of our time, while helping us to benefit from advances in science and technology.

Order the book.

Why Design Matters: Conversations with the World’s Most Creative People by Debbie Millman

Why Design Matters: Conversations with the World's Most Creative People

By Debbie Millman
Publisher: Harper Design
Published: February 22, 2022

Debbie Millman—author, educator, brand consultant, and host of the widely successful and award-winning podcast “Design Matters”—showcases dozens of her most exciting interviews, bringing together insights and reflections from today’s leading creative minds from across diverse fields.

Order the book.

Milton Glaser: POP by Steven Heller, Mirko Ilić, and Beth Kleber

Milton Glaser: POP

By Steven Heller, Mirko Ilić, and Beth Kleber
Publisher: The Monacelli Press
Published: March 2023

This collection of work from graphci design legend Milton Glaser’s Pop period features hundreds of examples of the designer’s work that have not been seen since their original publication, demonstrating the graphic revolution that transformed design and popular culture.

Order the book.

Meet Me by the Fountain: An Inside History of the Mall by Alexandra Lange

Meet Me by the Fountain: An Inside History of the Mall

By Alexandra Lange
Publisher: Bloomsbury
Published: June 2022

Chronicles postwar architects’ and merchants’ invention of the shopping mall, revealing how the design of these marketplaces played an integral role in their cultural ascent. Publishers Weekly writes, “Contending that malls answer ‘the basic human need’ of bringing people together, influential design critic Lange advocates for retrofitting abandoned shopping centers into college campuses, senior housing, and ‘ethnocentric marketplaces’ catering to immigrant communities. Lucid and well researched, this is an insightful study of an overlooked and undervalued architectural form.”

Order the book.

Die Fläche: Design and Lettering of the Vienna Secession, 1902–1911 (Facsimile Edition) by Diane V. Silverthorne, Dan Reynolds, and Megan Brandow-Faller

Die Fläche: Design and Lettering of the Vienna Secession, 1902–1911 (Facsimile Edition)

By Diane V. Silverthorne, Dan Reynolds, and Megan Brandow-Faller
Publisher: Letterform Archives Books
Published: October 2023

This facsimile edition of Die Fläche, recreates every page of the formative design periodical in full color and at original size, accompanied by essays that contextualize the work, highlighting contributions by pathbreaking women, innovative lettering artists, and key practitioners of the new “surface art,” including Rudolf von Larisch, Alfred Roller, and Wiener Werkstätte founders Koloman Moser and Josef Hoffmann.

Order the book.