The Japan Graphic Designers Association Inc. (JAGDA), established in 1978, is one of Asia’s largest design organizations, its membership currently standing at some 3,000 designers. JAGDA undertakes a wide variety of activities aimed at enhancing the environment for communication through design. These include organization of exhibitions and seminars, promotion of design education, initiatives to foster public design and revitalize regions, international exchange, and publication of a yearbook: Graphic Design in Japan.

Each year, from among the works selected for inclusion inGraphic Design in JapanJAGDA presents the “JAGDA New Designer Awards” to promising designers under the age of 40 who are expected to be prominent in the field in the years to come. Since the awards were inaugurated in 1983, they have been bestowed on 110 designers now active at the very forefront of their profession. As a result, today the JAGDA New Designer Awards are considered a gateway to success, and their winners garner much attention among members of both the design and advertising fields.

In 2019, after a rigorous selection process evaluating 152 eligible candidates, the 37th JAGDA New Designer Awards were presented to Natsuki Akanuma, Tomohiro Okazaki and Ikki Kobayashi. This exhibition will introduce their winning and recent works, with a focus on posters, product designs, and videos. Natsuki Akanuma, an in-house designer at Hakuhodo, creates logos for diverse corporate clients, posters, merchandise for illustrators’ solo exhibitions, etc. Tomohiro Okazaki started in graphic design, but today his activities go beyond printed materials to include video production and exhibition spatial design. Ikki Kobayashi develops product advertising and package design at Shiseido, and from May 2019 he is now also active on a freelance basis.

The exhibition will present an insightful and entertaining overview of the design works of this year’s three JAGDA New Design Award winners.