People often ask me ‘why Japan?’. Here’s my attempt at articulating why I find Japan particularly inspiring as a designer.

It’s easy to get lost in the minute details of the thing we are designing. But thinking more broadly makes us realize we, as designers, have the potential to impact far beyond the physical product or service. It’s actually a privileged opportunity to think about designing those ripple effects on humanity, and how we can make the world a better place to live on a macro scale. I’ll dive into architecture as our case study for this one.

After investigating how service excellence comes about naturally in Japan, I now view training in design like one trains in martial arts - a dedication to awakening our sensibilities and considering deeply the most appropriate response. Here I explore traits from Japanese culture that lend themselves towards the cultivation of our discipline as designers.

Kenya Hara is well known as Muji’s Art Director but has done numerous projects across Japan and globally. In this book he shares his thoughts on the future of Japan and how to shape it through design. Here are a few of my favorite quotes and a bit of summarized context around them.

Most large scale problems require joint effort from multiple actors in the ecosystem. Reading about the architectural design rationale behind the Tokyo Sea Life Park made me think about how this actually promotes ‘designing for change’ in a subtle yet clever way. It’s one thing to make people care about a topic, it’s another thing to help them become involved in positive change.