Designing Modern Japan

Starting in the nineteenth century and continuing to the present day, Designing Modern Japan explores how geopolitics, the global export market, and the adoption of new technologies led the Japanese government to identify design as a central economic and diplomatic strategy. Teasley reflects on the impact of colonial expansion and rising militarism on design practice and material culture in the decades before 1945 and charts designers’ contributions to postwar Japan’s economic growth. She also addresses design’s potential to assuage current challenges in Japan, such as an aging population, economic stagnation, and environmental crisis. Mining a rich array of texts and images never before available in English, Designing Modern Japan offers unparalleled insight into the factors shaping design’s development and how designers helped form the country as we know it today.

Sarah Teasley is a tutor in history of design and critical and historical studies at the Royal College of Art, London. She is the author of Twentieth Century Design History: A Critical Introduction.