Ex-formation

For Kenya Hara, design begins with comprehension of the unknown. The concept of “exformation,” to which a chapter was already devoted in Designing Design, continues to preoccupy the Japanese designer. In contrast to “information,” “exformation” describes how little we really know and thus becomes the starting point for any type of design. Based on a range of projects stemming from Kenya Hara’s teaching at the Musashino Art University, the book describes what “exformation” can look like in design practice and how this concept alters our classic understanding of information design. Following the path embarked on in Designing Design (2007) and its successor, White (2010), Ex-formation continues to explore the void, absence, and indeterminacy in contemporary design

Kenya Hara, Graphic Designer. Born in 1958. Graphic designer Kenya Hara served as the director of the Tokyo Fiber exhibition. He specializes in designing not objects but facts or events, such as identifications and communications. He produced the exhibition “RE-DESIGN_Daily Products of the 21st Century” in 2000, and through it he showed that the most marvelous sources of design were to be found in the context of daily life. In 2002, he became a member of the advisory board of MUJI and also took over as art director. In 2004, he produced the exhibition “HAPTIC_Awakening the Senses”. With this exhibition he demonstrated that within the contemporary context of design, in which designers tend to find their motivations spurred on by high technology, in fact vast resources for creation lay dormant in the human senses. He has directed work related to national events, such as the programs for the opening and closing ceremonies of the Nagano Olympics, and the official posters of the Aichi Expo 2005. Based in Tokyo, he has been seeking future communication resources he finds within Japanese culture and technology. His book Designing Design has been translated into several Asian languages, and in 2007 he largely rewrote it for translation into English, for publication by Lars Müller Publishers, Switzerland. At present he is the representative of Nippon Design Center Inc. and Professor of Musashino Art University.