In 2003, Issey Miyake contributed an essay entitled “Let’s Create―Design Museum (Tsukuro- dezain myu-jiamu),” to the January 28th evening edition of the Asahi Shimbun newspaper.

The piece lamented Japan’s lack of a museum devoted to design generated a great deal of attention, and as an unexpected result, Miyake gained a number of backers and advocates interested in helping him realize his dream.

Four years later in 2007, thanks to their help 21_21 DESIGN SIGHT opened in the Garden of the Tokyo Midtown complex in Roppongi.

Under the leadership of three Directors, Issey Miyake, Taku Satoh, and Naoto Fukasawa, as well as Associate Director Noriko Kawakami, 21_21 DESIGN SIGHT continues to present a wide variety of exhibitions and programs dedicated to the exploration of design and the practices of manufacturing.

Taking into account the international acclaim of Japanese design, it comes as a surprise to many that 21_21 DESIGN SIGHT is Japan’s first design ‘museum’, though its ambitious exhibitions, events and workshops strive to push beyond preconceived notions of what design “should” be.

An upcoming exhibition of note is “Modes and Characters: Poetics of Graphic Design” from November 23, 2023 through March 10th, 2024.

The exhibition is directed by Kiyonori Muroga, the editor of various books on graphics and typography; Tetsuya Goto, a researcher in graphic design; and Kensaku Kato, a graphic designer.

This exhibition aims at understanding design after the 1990s, when desktop publishing (DTP) became the mainstream in the design world, allowing designers to execute many processes in producing data for publications and printed matters on PCs, by focusing on the relationship between characters and design. Main exhibits comprise creations by some 50 individuals and teams of graphic designers active in Japan and abroad.

In Japanese graphic culture, which has its unique use of Chinese characters and kana, vertical and horizontal writing styles, and a mixture of text and images, how have designers dealt with global digital information technology, what have they produced in this effort, and what possibilities have their activities presented? These questions are tackled in 13 themes, including “formative design,” “physicality,” and “media.”

In the present age, where a large volume of visual information is exchanged, creators and recipients are often forced to focus on efficiency.

21_21 DESIGN SIGHT hopes this exhibition will allow visitors to rediscover the original enjoyment and diversity of graphic design, observing the creations of characters and images that freely emerge beyond a grid, and feeling the energy of design arising from their combinations and in-between spaces.

More information can be found by visiting the official exhibition page here.

For directions and general information about 21_21 DESIGN SIGHT, please visit 2121designsight.jp/en/information.