What are the things that Japanese design has done that we haven't? Yin Zhi Xian
In a survey not long ago by Japan's Yomiuri Shimbun, it was shown that 56% of Japanese and 44% of Chinese people do not like each other. However, dislike cannot erase the achievements and strengths of the other side. When I went to Tokyo to write a special feature for Fashion Home, I truly realized that there are many aspects in which Japan excels: 1) refining products, 2) solving everyday problems in life, especially 3) presenting a unique attitude towards life, all of which can be used as references for us to improve our own quality of life.
1. Lean is a Quality
Contemporary design improves the quality of life through attention to detail.
The Japanese believe that life cannot be rough because compromise leads to neglecting details, which ultimately creates a bottleneck in improving the quality of life. People who are accustomed to roughness will no longer have the ability to pursue excellence even if they one day develop an awareness of refinement. On this point, the Japanese have clearly understood the connection, so they maintain a high level of vigilance and comprehensive rejection of roughness. Living in Japan, you will constantly experience their emphasis on detail wherever you go.
A diaper, when unused, appears ordinary, but once wet, a rainbow pattern appears on the baby's bottom. This small detail not only reminds parents that it's time to change the diaper, but also adds humor to families with infants, providing them with opportunities to smile.
A cup, the key to its design lies in the arc formed by the hand when holding it to ensure maximum comfort.
A pair of chopsticks, what words and fonts should be printed on the packaging paper to highlight the essence of the food?
How many lights and where should they be placed in a house to be most appropriate?
Which poem should be selected as the greeting message on the bed tonight at a hotel to make guests staying for the third day feel refreshed?
Akita Prefecture's Daisen City is famous for making bento boxes and sushi boxes. These wooden boxes are made from cedar, which absorbs water and helps keep food fresh. It takes a craftsman at least five years of practice to bend a piece of wood into a circle. The cherry tree bark is used to sew the wooden strips, and each craftsman has their own unique stitching pattern. Marking these fine details determines the quality, which is almost universally seen in both traditional and modern Japanese products.
The pursuit of perfection in various details makes every aspect of Japanese life exude a sense of refinement. This sense of refinement is different from the artistic sophistication of the French; it more prominently reflects the Japanese attitude towards details - details and the whole have the same significance for life, and the overall quality and reliability are based on the refinement of each detail. Rough details cannot produce a high-quality whole.
All designs are based on in-depth research of behavior patterns.
Japanese designers manage to serve their audience through their designs not only by resolving conceptual issues but also by conducting in-depth systematic research on the objects they design.
Kakuda Masahide graduated from the Architecture Department of Nihon University and entered a light research institute specializing in lighting design. Later, despite the collapse of Japan's bubble economy, he continued in his field because of his passion.
In Kakuda Masahide's understanding, light does not merely provide illumination; it is also a channel for communication between people, rather than just being an appendage to architecture.
Since it is for communication - enabling smooth interaction between people and between people and the environment, Kakuda Masahide meticulously arranges the positioning and brightness of the lighting.
"Many Japanese designers now, including myself, pursue 'negative design,' which aims to reduce energy consumption while meeting people's needs. If there is no such lighting, people would not be able to live normally, then this source of light is necessary. Otherwise, it is superfluous. Changes in people's lifestyles are related to lighting."
Based on this understanding, Kakuda Masahide's lighting design involves many precise calculations. The position of the light source is usually placed at the junction of spaces to provide necessary prompts while walking. For example, the lighting focus in a neighborhood is on entrances and exits, as these are the places people frequently enter and exit, and safety is important. In the lighting facilities on neighborhood roads, he only uses 10-15 watts of brightness. And regarding how many lights are needed to completely outline the geographical boundaries and contours of a building, Kakuda Masahide chooses the minimum requirement while ensuring image recognition, instead of using excessive lighting to attract attention. He believes that many cities in China now spend a lot of money on public facility lighting, and rich people's private residences often design their homes with "starry skies" lighting, similar to Japan before the collapse of the bubble economy. This way of highlighting architectural bodies rather than integrating lighting with architecture inevitably leads to wasted energy. His generation of Japanese designers who experienced the bubble economy now focuses on designing lights precisely according to actual needs.
"What a person does at home is an answer to lighting design," said Kakuda Masahide. "So I want to do verb-style design - clear functions, well-defined boundaries, rather than adjective-style design - vague purposes, unclear functions."
When he designs a living room for someone, he arranges six light sources in the space instead of filling the ceiling with spotlights. He believes that interior designers have already completed the consistency inside the room, so he only needs to meet the minimum light requirements for different areas. He does not intend to create characteristics with light, but to use light to reproduce existing features. When he assigns such a function to lighting, lighting no longer plays a complex role, and this simplicity is achieved through accurate calculations.
As for the color temperature of the light source, Kakuda Masahide carefully considers it. If the goal is to highlight a relaxed and quiet atmosphere, he will let the position and brightness of the light source create the effect of flickering candlelight. But if it's for showcasing certain items, he will use white light to ensure that the colors of the items do not deviate, and he will also increase the brightness of the light so that people can purely recognize the characteristics of the items.
Naoto Fukasawa, the chief designer of "+0", became rapidly famous for a CD player designed for Muji. His later designs of humidifiers, flashlights, telephones, etc., were not particularly unusual in terms of shape or materials, but his meticulous attention to detail combined with exquisite craftsmanship deterred foreign imitators.
During interviews in Japan, we saw many Japanese designs that did not attempt to be exaggerated or surprising. Beneath seemingly plain appearances lay deep expertise in details.
This ability to be meticulous exists among the Japanese populace and can be considered a basic quality. This is a group that does not accept the concept of "almost" in any matter large or small, and is also a group that has undergone strict training. One memorable detail is that at the entrance of Disneyland, a group of children sat on the ground and left neatly in line when called by their teacher, leaving the area as clean as if no one had been there. Such a group has the capability to do what they set out to do and to do it thoroughly. When they want to take care of themselves, they can produce good products for themselves. So how do we achieve a good life?
Some say Japan lives frugally due to energy shortages, yet they manage to live better lives with fewer resources than we do, while we continue to build high-energy-consuming structures, and many products become garbage due to poor design and craftsmanship... A life composed of such details will not make us richer or more comfortable. But when we don't want others to fool us with shoddy products, are we consciously or unconsciously tolerating roughness, wasting our and others' ideals for life?
2. Respect for Tradition and Enthusiasm for the Times
Design Needs to Handle the Relationship Between Elements Across Generations Well
People live in time, and the composition of life must include the dimension of time. Preservationists believe that the value of tradition cannot be overturned by modern life, while modernists always think that exaggerating the meaning of tradition only hinders social development. The animosity between these two sides in today's China seems to have become an irreconcilable contradiction. In Japan, however, entire cities, neighborhoods, specific houses, or even individual products seem not to struggle between choosing tradition or modernity. Time is not an element that Japanese design or real life needs to handle dramatically. [...]