Japan Commercial Environmental Design Association
Japan Design Space Association

Creating new values of spatial design and building a creative society will lead to the enrichment of people’s lives and society.

By finding outstanding designs and excellent designers and introducing them to the world, we will expand new possibilities of spatial design.

The Japan Commercial Environmental Design Association (JCD) was founded in 1961 to establish the professional role of commercial environmental design and to improve the quality of communication in urban society as well as the environments playing host to commercial activities. JCD was incorporated in 1963. JCD is composed of creatives from a vast array of spatial design fields, including interior design, architecture, spatial production, planning, lighting design, and graphic design. Activities like the presentation of design awards; holding symposia, educational events, and seminars; and the publication of periodicals and books expands our influence beyond Japan to the international stage. Catalyzed by recent societal changes, we are diversifying these activities in service of creating new value in design.

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Spatial design is about designing extremely highly interactive, impressive space by infusing messages that need to be delivered on the spot through the use of various techniques to enable articulation of ideas and offer thrilling and exciting experiences. Our activities as a group of creators focus on producing vibrant interactive space ranging from basic show windows & displays to exhibitions, showrooms, promotions, cultural, business and entertainment space, as well as architectural structures, cities, and landscapes. The Japan Design Space Association (DSA), in our official capacity as an incorporated association, is committed to pursuing public-interest activities that can contribute to economy, industry, society and culture through enhancing design technique advancements, organizing design awards, and facilitating symposiums, international exchanges, studies, publication and other promotional and educational activities.

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Graphic design is two-dimensional and spatial design is three-dimensional, however functional design of both can be regarded as ‘four-dimensional’ integrating the fourth dimension ‘time’ such as aging, customer traffic line and the spirit of the times. In case of spatial design including towns and cities, for example, impression of a place when it is busy with tourists and when it is not is different. This is because change of time in the tourist season affects the shape of spatial design, which proves that space, cities and architecture are four-dimensional after thorough investigation.
The logo of “JAPAN KUKAN DESIGN AWARD” is designed on the basis of this idea, using a Chinese character of ‘four’ in four-dimensional as a motif. Although the number ‘four’ is sometimes considered bad luck in Japan, it used to be a character representing ‘cities’ in China. The number ‘eight’ used in the character of four means emperor, and it is said to denote an emperor in the center of the city in the four cardinal points. The logo is formed by a combination of two rectangles in the golden ratio (*1) and the silver ratio (*2). The lines adapted from the Chinese character ‘eight’ in the rectangles abstract spatial design (four-dimensional design) symbolically.
The style of the logo has an extremely simple design so that the winning work of “JAPAN KUKAN DESIGN AWARD” stands out. Although it is simple, the space between the letters was elaborated to create a deep impression.