VISUALIZE 60

Nippon Design Center, Inc. (NDC) will present “VISUALIZE 60 Vol.1,”an exhibition to be presented at POLYLOGUE on the 13th floor of NDC’s Tokyo Headquarters from Tuesday, November 10 to Friday, December 18, 2020. This follows an exhibition at the Matsuya Ginza department store in Tokyo. NDC, headed by President Kenya Hara, is based at 4-9-13 Ginza, Chuo-ku, Tokyo, Japan.

Celebrating the 60th anniversary of NDC’s foundation, this show is the first half of the main “VISUALIZE 60” exhibition, which takes a fresh look at design and Nippon Design Center from the perspective of visualizing the essence of both. The exhibits cover thirty of sixty recent projects in which NDC has handled new areas, including visual identity, signage, product and application development, and exhibition planning and production. Employing tobirae illustrations as a guide to the essence of design and NDC, the show presents a wide range of visualizations using actual products, signs, and edited videos. The exhibition is directed by Yoshiaki Irobe. Art direction for the tobirae illustrations is handled by Haruka Misawa.

Nippon Design Center was established in 1959 by creators such as Yusaku Kamekura, Hiromu Hara, Ryuichi Yamashiro, Kazumasa Nagai, and Yusuke Kaji as a creative  organization aiming to further and improve the quality of advertising design in Japan. NDC creates design solutions spanning a wide range of areas, including graphics, signage,  exhibition production, product design, websites, and videos. It aims to contribute to  the formation of the very best resources for business through visualization techniques  that identify and visualize the true nature of things.

https://www.ndc.co.jp

VISUALIZE 60 represents the creations of Nippon Design Center using illustrations called tobirae, the Japanese term for a book’s frontispiece or title page illustrations that literally translates as “door picture”. As the name indicates, the tobirae illustration at the beginning of each exhibit functions as a guide for the viewer to the essence of the project, an ‘entrance’ or introduction of sorts, stirring the viewer’s interest, promoting understanding, and appealing to his or her imagination and sensibilities. These tobiraeillustrations are part of the show’s visualization, and are one of the highlights of the show.

The VISUALIZE 60 book is published in conjunction with the exhibition. It includes all sixty projects exhibited, covering a wide range of genres and areas, and is presented in reorganized form, with particular attention paid to the tobirae and other illustrations. It features discussions by Hara Kenya, Irobe Yoshiaki, Daigo Daikoku and Haruka Misawa on the topic of “To DESIGN is to VISUALIZE.” Available from the POLYLOGUE exhibition venue, bookstores throughout Japan, and online stores starting Friday, November 20.

Online “VISUALIZE TALK” events are scheduled to coincide with the exhibition“VISUALIZE 60”. Two talk sessions a month on the topic of visualization will be broadcast live and archived on YouTube, including discussions in which art directors Kenya Hara, Yoshiaki Irobe, Daigo Daikoku, Haruka Misawa, and other creators at Nippon Design Center explore their own visualizations and invite guests in each creator’s own areas of interest to talk about visualization in different fields, such as business, tourism, art, cultural anthropology, fashion, picture books, sociology, and the natural sciences. There are also discussions among NDC employees, including anecdotes related to the creation of the sixty projects shown in the exhibition. Information about dates, speakers, and other details will be announced on the official VISUALIZE 60 website and social media in advance of the talks.

Tuesday, January 12 – Friday, February 19, 2021At POLYLOGUE
(on 13th floor of NDC’s Tokyo Headquarters)

Tuesday, March 2 – Sunday, March 14, 2021At Morioka Shoten bookstore in Ginza

The latest press kit images can be requested and downloaded from this website.
https://forms.gle/NjUwYpRu3yTmYp6s7

VISUALIZE 60 Secretariat, Nippon Design Center, Inc.:
Ginza 4-chome Tower, 4-9-13 Ginza, Chuo-ku, Tokyo
10:00–18:00 (Closed weekends and holidays)
Tel: 03-6264-0300 URL: https://visualize60.ndc.co.jp

Sarang Chang
Tel: 050-3196-9461 (Weekdays, 10:00–18:00) Email: visualize60@ndc.co.jp

Corporate communications contact:
Lepre / Yasuko Natsume
Tel: 090-4602-0612 Email: ynatsume@mac.com