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The Year's Best Japanese Product Design

By Kenji Hall

The Year's Best Japanese Product Design

Every year since 1957, the government-funded Japan Industrial Promotion Organization (JIDPO) has lent its prestigious Good Design logo to a list of new products. Most people tend to associate design with aesthetics. But while high-tech products perennially sweep the top awards—known as the Best 15—the 74-member committee of designers, architects, writers, and academics doesn't limit its picks to whiz-bang gizmos and good looks. Often, it's the products with tiny improvements that win the highest praise. This year's grand prize went to Toyota's iQ, a small car whose roomy interior is a marvel of engineering and space-saving design. Past winners were Sanyo's Eneloop rechargeable batteries and Mitsubishi Motors' "i" compact car.

JIDPO says winning products should "improve lives, foster industrial development, and promote export and trade by enhancing the quality of products on the market." That vague objective only seems to encourage selection committee members to scour a broad array of sectors. This year's winners reflect "images of life in the near future and designs that lead the way to next-generation lifestyles," JIDPO said in a press release. The Best 15 and the winners of four other award categories get the lion's share of media attention. They beat out a field of 3,023 entries. But ultimately more than 1,000 products in this year's competition will get to carry the Good Design G-mark symbol, a decision that, critics say, dilutes some of the award's prestige