Yearly Archives: 2013

As I wrote in a previous post, I often “practice” graphic design on a crowdsourcing web service. I have not learned graphic design. I just like it. As far as I remember, my earliest selected graphic design work was the cover of a “publication” of my fourth grade class. I think it was a collection of compositions. Everyone in the class submitted a “design”, and mine was voted as the best one. One of my nicknames during my elementary-school days was “図工の先生 (art-and-crafts teacher)”. By the way, in my earliest memory (probably it was before going to my kindergarten), I was drawing imaginary cats, like cats fishing on a boat. My parents proudly and generously posted those drawings on a wall of our living room, if I remember it correctly.

Today I revised some pages of my portfolio web site, and revisited some pages that I have not revised for a long time, including some early “design” works that I made before learning industrial design at the University of Calgary which is my first official design education. Those works include early “graphic design” works like this one, this one, or this one. Surprisingly (or not surprisingly), those early works look way nicer than the recent works that I submitted on the crowdsourcing service like those ones. Why? Probably because I forgot a beginner’s mind. Now I focus more on technique than design itself. But this expression is a little weird because I am still a beginner, or even “less than beginner” since I have not learned graphic design.

It sounds like now it’s time to go back to basics.

When I was learning English in Japan, an American teacher showed students an interesting Hollywood movie. It is a story about a creature visiting our planet earth from the outer space. It is widely known that the Voyager aircraft brings messages for extraterrestrials, and in the movie, the creature visits the earth because he (or she?) gets the message and it goes “come visit us”. The creature, which originally did not have a shape, gets a man’s body, and gradually learns one of the earth people’s languages, which is English.

But according to this article, it won’t happen in the near future: Voyager left solar system last year, new research shows. Voyager may or may not in solar system now, and it will take a long long time to have a chance to encounter an extraterrestrial.

A fascinating fact is that the aircraft was launched in 1977 and still sends signals from the “edge” of solar system to the earth daily. How many people own a vehicle that was made around 1977 and still works properly? Probably not many. Some people may own a car from that era because they have cultural values (may not be as valuable as those from the 30s, though), but I guess not many of them use it daily.

I often wonder which is better, making products that will last long, or making products that meet the needs of a particular time. There is no single answer. It depends. In terms of environmental impact, of course, it is generally better to make products that will last long. But technically, it generally costs more to make such products (I bet a Voyager aircraft is way more expensive than a typical vehicle!). More importantly, people generally like to have new things. Is this good or bad? If all the human beings give up to have new things, does it mean all creative people have to turn their interest toward something conservative?

I just looked around me and thought what is the oldest thing here. It’s a Japanese folding fan. I bought it in 1997, and that type of folding fan has been used in Japan for more than a millennium. Ideally, I want to design something like that.

One of the hottest news in last few days is a case that is considered to be a hate crime by many people; an unarmed black teenager was shot and killed by a “Hispanic” neighbourhood watch leader, and he was found not guilty. According to an internet article, Obama: ‘Trayvon Martin could have been me’, U.S. President Barack Obama told something touching in his personal remarks. He also mentioned,

There are very few African-American men in this country who have not had the experience of being followed when they are shopping at a department store. That includes me.
There are probably very few African-American men who have not had the experience of walking across the street and hearing the locks click on the doors of cars. That happens to me – at least before I was a senator.

I have experienced something like this in three countries: Tonga, Spain, and Canada. In Tonga, I was harassed and abused daily in some ways. Literally, daily. Many of them threw stones at me. In Barcelona, Spain, if I went to a store, guards always stared at me while they even did not watch Spanish and Caucasian customers, and cashiers always used a fake bill detector to accept my 10-Euro bill while they did not use it to accept even 50-Euro bills from Spanish and Caucasians. If I went to a museum, a staff member always quietly followed me a few meters behind. In Hamilton, Canada, non-Asian cashiers in many stores, whether they are white or coloured, obviously changed their attitude toward me and toward Caucasians. If I said “how are you?”, most of them ignored. If I walked in town or sat down on a bench in a park, some people stared at me.

What is even worse than discrimination itself is that some people do not understand discrimination; they say those who are discriminated against are to be blamed because they did something bad. I know it because some people have blamed me for being discriminated against (and I hated them). Any discrimination is irrational, but they don’t know it.

What helps those who are discriminated against is to be understood by someone. When I was looking for a job after graduating from University of Calgary, some people suggested me looking for a job in Europe. I always said “I don’t like that option because Europeans are generally less generous to foreigners than Canadians are”. (It was after living in Barcelona and before living in Hamilton) All of my Caucasian classmates said, “come on, don’t worry about that”. Only an African student said “I know it. It’s a common problem between us.”

Probably President Obama knows this feeling. I admire him, and appreciate his remarks.

阿部真央 (Abe Mao), or “Abema”, is one of my most favorite Japanese singers. Her songs are very touching. She is young, and seems to feel same things that I felt when I was around her age. Now I’m old, but her singing touches me. One of her songs, 17歳の唄 (17 year old’s song) goes like this. (originally written in Japanese, and translated by me)

Something sad happened. In the same sky where I used to find cloud animals when I was little, I cannot find anything any more, any more.

A few days ago, I found something incredible in the sky.

I don’t know how many people would agree, but to me, the clouds look like a red phoenix and a black tiger facing off. The phoenix is very impressive. I can see wings, an S-shape neck, a crest, and a gorgeous tail. I magnified and processed the image to make it clear.

In one way, I can say this is mother nature’s incredible creation. In another way, I can say I am still sensitive and perceptive. When I found the clouds, there ware many people, but I did not see anyone else who was looking at the sky. Good to know my heart is still younger than 17. By the way, one of other Abema’s sensitive songs is 19歳の唄 (19 year old’s song). I’m way older than 19, but this song touches me.

As I wrote in a previous post, I am looking for a job again. Probably I will do a non-design job again. Whether I am a professional designer or not, I want to retain the sensitivity and perception as a designer.

About half a year ago, I wrote about corporate culture; in some companies like Toyota, different teams share a system, and I wondered whether those engineers communicate well unlike typical engineers, or someone established a system so that they can share information without willing to communicate with others. In another previous post, a few weeks ago, I wrote about customs; I wondered why Toyota style activities to improve manufacturing processes are called kaizen, which originally only means “improvement”. I wondered why plant workers are not considered to be “users”. Recently I had a good experience to have a glimpse of Toyota corporate culture. It adequately answered my questions.

A senior Japanese engineer was providing a seminar to Canadian supervisors about improving manufacturing processes in the Toyota style, and practiced it with Japanese engineers to see how it would work. He generously invited me to the practice session. In the seminar, he uses Lego blocks to play a “game” in order to show how different manufacturing processes bring different results, which is impressive and way more efficient than giving a lecture. To make a long story short, once a sophisticated system is established to run manufacturing processes efficiently, plant workers only need to focus on their section with one condition, which is to think of the people of the subsequent section. In that system, the entire manufacturing process runs smoothly and efficiently even though workers in every section do not have a big picture. Once a sophisticated system is established by someone smart, they only need to think of the workers of the subsequent section as “users of their interim products”. Isn’t this great?

Of course this is easy to say, so hard to do. A fact is that some people actually do it, which makes their company outstanding. This fact is discouraging in a way because the company I work for now is very different from them. On the other hand, it is very encouraging because it tells me that what I wondered and imagined can be reality.