Selection Process of the 26th Yusaku Kamekura Design Awards
Publication
“Graphic Design in Japan 2024” (July 2024)
Award Ceremony
JAGDA General Assembly on 22 June 2024 in Okayama
Exhibition
Monday 1 July – Sunday 25 August 2024 | Tokyo Midtown Design Hub
Monday 22 July – Saturday 24 August 2024 | Ginza Graphic Gallery
Selection Process of the 26th Yusaku Kamekura Design Award
The Yusaku Kamekura Design Award was established in 1999 to commemorate the achievements of Yusaku Kamekura (1915-1997), JAGDA’s first president, and to contribute to the ongoing development of graphic design. The award was made possible through a generous donation from Mr. Kamekura’s family. It is presented each year to the work judged most outstanding among all entries in the JAGDA Annual, regardless of category, and its designer.
Preliminary nominations for the 26th award were made in November and December 2023 by the 29 members of the JAGDA Annual Screening Committee. Their selections were made from among the 2,055 works entered in the competition to be included in the 2024 edition of the JAGDA Annual: Graphic Design in Japan. To begin, from among all works nominated for JAGDA Awards in their respective categories, the committee extracted 76 entries garnering the highest numbers of votes. Excluded at this time were 50 works by 14 designers who had previously received the award (Katsumi Asaba, Kenya Hara, Kazunari Hattori, Yoshiaki Irobe, Kaoru Kasai, Atsuki Kikuchi, Kazumasa Nagai, Norio Nakamura, Tomohiro Okazaki, Takuya Onuki, Taku Satoh, Ryoji Tanaka, Ryosuke Uehara and Yoshie Watanabe). The committee members next voted for the work or series of works they felt deserving of the Yusaku Kamekura Design Award, with each member having a total of 5 votes. All eligible works were displayed anonymously, and committee members were barred from voting for their own works. This stage of the selection process resulted in a list of 16 multiple-vote receiving works by 12 individual designers and 2 groups (with 2 entrants receiving votes for multiple works).
The final award selection was conducted on December 22, 2023 by the 11 members of the Yusaku Kamekura Design Award Selection Committee. This year, 3 works which had been selected as JAGDA Award winners by the JAGDA Annual Screening Committee failed to be included among the 16 candidates for the Yusaku Kamekura Design Award, and a proposal to include these 3 works was accepted, bringing the total number of candidate works to 19. In compliance with the rule that limits 1 nominated work per designer or team of designers, candidates having multiple preliminary nominations were in principle nominated for the work selected by majority vote by the Selection Committee. However, this year there was a case in which multiple works on the identical theme had been entered separately, and after discussions the Selection Committee decided to count these together as 1 work. This reduced the number of final nominations to 16.
In the next phase, the 11 members of the Selection Committee voted on the 16 nominations, with each judge permitted to cast up to 3 votes. This resulted in 1 work receiving 7 votes, 1 receiving 6 votes, 1 receiving 5 votes, 1 receiving 4 votes, and 2 each receiving 3 votes. The committee members then entered into discussions in which they each cited their opinions of each work. The nominations were at this point narrowed down to 4 works that had received the most votes: works by Yoko Inoue, Issay Kitagawa, Hiroaki Nagai and Mariko Okazaki. A final round of voting resulted in Mr. Kitagawa’s work garnering a majority 9 votes, and accordingly the 26th Yusaku Kamekura Design Award was bestowed on Issay Kitagawa.
The award-winning work, “KAMIZU,” is an art project created to convey the spirituality, values and ideologies of Japanese culture through items and events involving diverse mascot characters in motifs including the pantheon of myriad gods. The project unfolds primarily in Kyoto, Kobe and Tokyo through collaborations with Shinto shrines, shops of long standing, etc. It was highly acclaimed by the judges. One praised its positive strength, saying that while in its forms it seemed far from tradition, “KAMIZU” suggested convincingly what Japan’s deities were like. Another said this was a brand-new project driven by the strength of the designer’s solid beliefs. Another judge commented that although one is drawn to the use of gaudy colors, this can be construed as conforming with Japan’s five historical colors; and as a collaboration with the classical realm, including the choice of working with Shinto shrines and ancient shops, it is extremely tastefully done. Yet another noted that Mr. Kitagawa’s unique designs have been an influence on many younger designers since the 1990s, and in this work too his unconventional direction and exceptional strength of forms are amazing.
[Nominated Works]
Issay Kitagawa: Total design of art project
Taichi Tamaki: Newspaper ads for apparel brand
Yoko Inoue: Works for solo exhibition
Ryosuke Kato / Chihiro Kato: Package designs for brand of condiments
Masahiro Kakinokihara: Book design of collection of artists’ works
Shunta Sakamoto: Graphics production app
Mariko Okazaki: Total design for art event
Agata Yamaguchi: Works shown at paper trading company’s exhibition
Hiroaki Nagai: Title logo and poster for exhibition at art museum
Norito Shinmura / Kosuke Niwano: Magazine ads for campground
Manabu Mizuno: Movie commemorating track-sharing by multiple train companies
Akiko Sekimoto: Packaging for Japanese confectionery maker
Kizuki Nakano: Packaging for cosmetics brand
Kako Fujita: Packaging for brand of Japanese sweets
Yui Takada: Works and spatial design for solo show
Jujiro Maki / Yuri Uenishi / Toru Kase: Boxed set of magazine book designs