A Message from the Director

Mar. 3, 2015

Pleasant Form for Everyone—Universal Design Exhibition 2015

The Printing Museum, Tokyo held an exhibition on the "Universal Design of Print Expression" in the P&P Gallery seven years ago, early in the spring of 2008. The design concept we presented at the exhibition was familiar: "suitable design for everyone." Looking back today, public recognition and goals in the new field of Universal Design (UD) look fairly constrained. The designer’s main target was to avoid inconvenience for particular users.

In the last seven years "UD" has become an everyday term in design and a widely recognized force of good. Universal Design provides pleasure, comfort, and convenience to everyone, universally. Beyond differences in physical fitness and physique, age and gender, perception and judgment, nationality and language, society is adopting designs that everyone can use seamlessly in any setting or time, in peacetime or during emergencies.

This exhibition widely explores the current world of UD. In my work with others to create the exhibition I was exposed to many forms of creativity, both conceptually and substantively in goods and commodities. We hope you will spend a few hours at the exhibition to experience the progress of UD. After you visit, we encourage you to give us your feedback and suggestions for the future.

Koichi Kabayama

Director
Printing Museum, Tokyo

Koichi Kabayama

Director
Printing Museum, Tokyo

Born in Tokyo in 1945. Graduated from the Faculty of Letters at the University of Tokyo in 1965, and after completing the masters degree course at the university became a research assistant at the Institute for Research in Humanities, Kyoto University in 1969. Became an assistant professor at the Faculty of Letters at the University of Tokyo in 1976, and later became a professor. Served as the Director-General of The National Museum of Western Art, Tokyo from 2001, becoming Director of the Printing Museum, Tokyo in 2005, a position he still holds. His fields of specialization are Western history and Western cultural history.