Award Winners
ISHIZUKA Shun, FUJITA Kako, YAGO Naonori

Publication

“Graphic Design in Japan 2023” (July 2023)

Award Ceremony

JAGDA General Assembly on 16 June 2023 in Tokyo

Exhibitions
Tokyo | Tuesday 18 April – Saturday 27 May 2023 | Creation Gallery G8

Selection Process

The JAGDA New Designer Awards were established in 1983 with the goals of calling attention to outstanding young designers and energizing the realm of graphic design. The award winners – normally no more than 3 – are selected each year from among all entrants whose works are featured in the JAGDA Annual who have not reached their 40th birthday as of the end of October of the judging year.

This year 140 designers with works featured in Graphic Design in Japan 2023 qualified as “new designers” (JAGDA members under age 40 as of October 31, 2022). Among these, a first round of voting was held for the 40 individuals who had 3 or more featured works in total selected in the 10 categories (2 or more if the Integrated Design category was included). The featured works of each designer were grouped together at the judging session, and all names were kept anonymous.

In this first round, the 27 members of the Selection Committee in attendance were permitted to cast up to 7 votes in total, but they were not required to use up their quota. The outcome showed 12 individuals garnering 8 or more votes, qualifying them as the award nominees.

The second round of voting was then conducted, this time with each judge casting 3 votes in total (without the option of not casting all allotted votes). Again, the designers’ names were kept anonymous. In this round each committee member indicated his or her choices for 1st, 2nd and 3rd places; a 1st-place vote was worth 3 points, 2nd place 2 points, and 3rd place 1 point. The top 4 point getters were Naonori Yago (29 points/16 votes), Kako Fujita (25 points/10 votes), Shun Ishizuka (16 points/7 votes) and Agata Yamaguchi (15 points/7 votes). After discussions, the judges decided to cast votes again to determine which designer was deserving of 3rd place, Mr. Ishizuka or Mr. Yamaguchi. This time each judge cast 1 vote, resulting in Mr. Ishizuka garnering 14 votes to Mr. Yamaguchi’s 13. The 2023 JAGDA New Designer Awards were thus bestowed on Naonori Yago, Kako Fujita and Shun Ishizuka.