Idea No.400 (January 2023 issue) with appendix

This is the 400th issue and the special issue celebrating the 70th anniversary of the magazine's founding. This is a permanent edition that includes the cover designs of the first 399 issues!

Archiving activities, which aim to utilize past materials for future creation by recording and systematizing information on collected and stored materials and works, have been carried out mainly by art museums, museums, university libraries, etc. throughout Japan. As interest in archives in the cultural and artistic fields has increased due to the wave of digitalization since the 2000s and the rise of media art, in recent years, companies and organizations have emerged that are working on digitizing archives, and more creative methods of building and operating databases have begun to be discussed.

On the other hand, in the case of graphic design, there are poster collections mainly in Western art museums and museums, as well as personal archives of designers and artists who supported the dawn of modern design, but there are few precedents in Japan, and in many cases, the situation surrounding design museums and design archives has not been developed to the point where the collected and stored resources are publicly accessible. If the essence of an archive is considered to be the accumulation of knowledge that can be utilized, many of Japan's design archives have not yet reached an ideal state as an archive, and improving accessibility will be a major challenge. The realization of a more open archive will foster the soil for the historicization and systematization of design, such as design history research and critical activities, and will also lead to the germination of new creative activities. Ultimately, it should create a circulation of knowledge that deepens understanding of the collected and stored resources.

Based on this perspective, this special feature will introduce domestic graphic design-related archives, including ongoing examples. Although the nature and scale of the materials vary, such as poster archives, archives of individual designers, archives of exhibition announcements, and archives of Japanese typography-related materials, we hope that this will be an opportunity to reconsider design preservation records as a familiar issue through the voices of people actually involved in the practice of archiving. In the second half of the special feature, there are contributions and interviews that will give a broader understanding of archives. Topics that will lead to future discussions include the circumstances of archives both domestically and internationally used in the field of historical research, how to perceive archives/archival things in the information society, and the value of paper media as archives. The pages that connect these contents also feature cover designs from the first issue to the 399th issue of our magazine. We hope that you will enjoy this special feature as an archive of IDEA itself, as well as a project to consider archives.

Edited by IDEA Editorial Department
List price (tax included): 4,070 yen
Release date: December 9, 2022

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IDEA No. 400 (January 2023 issue) with supplement | Seibundo Shinkosha Co., Ltd. (seibundo-shinkosha.net)