A Small Step, Design Leaps: Focused Issues theme decided

One of the important roles of the GOOD DESIGN AWARD is to discover possibilities and issues for the coming society. Focused Issues is designed to play this role, with a focus on deepening the critical questions that design must face today.

Focused Issues apprehend and analyze the “wave” which arises in design each year. While observing the entries, themes are extracted as a summary after the screening is over. After repeated consideration of the possibilities and of the role and significance of design in the future society, the results are presented as a proposal.

Then, after a screening process, the 2024 theme was determined as “A Small Step, Design Leaps.”

The team in charge of Focused Issues consists of six members: three chairpersons/vice chairpersons as Focused Issues directors, and three Focused Issues researchers. Throughout the months-long screening process which started with the first screening in June, apart from the regular screening process, they explored the “wave” by looking at all entries from their own specialties and perspectives.

This article will introduce the intention behind this year’s theme in more detail based on the discussions among these six members.

“A Small Step” – shedding light on the “source” of thoughts and activities

The theme of the GOOD DESIGN AWARD 2023, “Design and its Outcome,” focused on the “results” of design.

Moreover, the theme of the 2023 Focused Issues and also of the GOOD DESIGN AWARD 2024, “Brave Attitude, Organic Design,” paid attention to the “thoughts” and “activities” which are one stage before the “results.”

And now, with the 2024 Focused Issues theme, we aim to shed light on the “source” which is at an even earlier stage than these “thoughts” and “activities.” “A Small Step, Design Leaps” was set as the theme out of this hope.

Designs that revolutionize society are born from “a small step” driven by the enthusiasm of small individuals in organizations or local communities, rather than from the “big needs” driven by the market.

Among the winners of the GOOD DESIGN AWARD 2024, designs that started from these smallest of signs were conspicuous – designs that were driven by an inner impulse and narrated the background and process development anecdotes in their own words, with “I” as the subject.

The phrase “a small step” was adopted to visualize these simultaneous movements as a wave and increase their number even further from the next fiscal year onwards.

https://www.g-mark.org/en/gallery/winners/24820 https://www.g-mark.org/en/gallery/winners/21058 https://www.g-mark.org/en/gallery/winners/27473

“Leaps” – getting caught up, growing into a major transformation

The first step is “a small step.”

However, no matter how small in scale the effort may be, the people around it are moved and caught up by its extraordinary energy.

By directly getting involved in this effort or supporting it from behind, they work together to nurture a small step into a big change.

The word “leaps” was added focusing on the transmission of this energy, its power to sweep people along.

From a personal issue to a company issue, from a company issue to a societal issue...

“A small step” takes a tremendous amount of work, but it holds an enormous power which market-driven design can never have.

It does not end with this “small step”, let alone with hammering down this “nail that sticks out,” but leads in the end to a massive shift – this dynamism will surely make the leap to even more organizations and communities.

https://www.g-mark.org/en/gallery/winners/24555 https://www.g-mark.org/en/gallery/winners/22683 https://www.g-mark.org/en/gallery/winners/25806

This understanding and analysis of and outlook for the process generated by “Brave Attitude, Organic Design” were behind the 2024 theme “A Small Step, Design Leaps.”

The six members will also go on to issue a report proposing specific actions.

“Ensuring that the new ‘wave’ is carried forward to the next day and the next year. This is what is expected of the GOOD DESIGN AWARD and Japan Institute of Design Promotion” – look out for the report, which is due to be released in 2025.