IDEA No. 406 (July 2024 issue)

This book features original artwork by designers who are renowned for their event posters, store logos, and packaging designs!

[Feature]
Kazuki Kobayashi: Illustrations of Life Planning and composition: Kazuki Kobayashi, Akitsu Design, IDEA Editorial Department Design: Akitsu Design

A special issue on graphic designer Ikki Kobayashi. After graduating from Tama Art University in 2015, Kobayashi joined Shiseido and worked in the design department at the Creative Division. After leaving the company, he won the JAGDA New Designer Award in 2019. He is currently based in Tokyo and works as a freelance graphic designer.

This special feature features 38 new designs that Kobayashi has been working on since the winter of 2023. In Kobayashi's work, these designs are the equivalent of rough sketches, and he usually creates paths in Illustrator based on hand-drawn designs, and completes the designs through digital work. However, in this magazine, we decided to focus on the process by which the "shapes" Kobayashi creates emerge and how he thinks with his body through the act of drawing designs, and to line up "designs" that are not yet designed, under the title "Diagrams of Life." The layout and design of the magazine were done by Akitsu Sekkei, who was a classmate of Kobayashi at university and has seen his activities up close.

In today's highly digitalized society, the manufacturing industry is becoming increasingly streamlined, and a huge amount of expression is being generated and consumed at an astonishing speed. The boom in generative AI in recent years has boosted this situation, and by manipulating images based on certain algorithms, collaborating with others, and using tools, it is now possible to design even if you cannot draw.

The debate over whether to approach design with analog or digital is no longer such a big issue in design, and both analog and digital should be used appropriately. However, the motivation to create something for someone, and what it means to be finished - at least for now - require human judgment at the beginning and end. As a basis for such judgment, the experience we gain through our hands and eyes is more reliable than the algorithms of big data.

The unsorted emotions of everyday life, the sudden interest in unnecessary things, and insignificant things are the basis for and strength of form. Kobayashi's attitude of honestly facing form and moving his hands even in the midst of a life of making, working, living, and other inconsequential things, makes me think once again about the preciousness of the birth of form.

Edited by IDEA Editorial Department Price (including tax): 3,630 yen Release date: June 10, 2024
JAN: 4910014290747

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IDEA No. 406 (July 2024 issue) | Seibundo Shinkosha Co., Ltd. (seibundo-shinkosha.net)