Detail. Exceptional Japanese Product Design. 20 years on, what happened?

Exactly 20 years ago I wrote a book titled ‘Detail: Exceptional Japanese Product Design’, published by Laurence King. It was a book ‘of its time’, a snapshot of a period - post Y2K, post dot-com bubble but pre iPhone - when Japanese innovation, engineering and manufacturing was at its most potent. With an endless stream of technological advances twinned with authentic design and engineering innovation the power and influence of Japanese design seemed unlimited.

Two decades on, what has changed?

Twenty years is a long time by any measure but in technological terms it might as well be fifty. Technology grows exponentially. Moore’s law, Ray Kurzweil and all that. Society changes quickly too, economic, geo-political and lifestyle developments directly affect how, why and where things are made.

But why do we see fewer examples of the advanced, innovative and intellectually stimulating Japanese products of the kind that originally inspired Detail? Is it just the ebb and flow of industry and influence that many economies suffer?

There must be other other reasons too...

In 2003 we already owned many of the tokens of technology that we interact with today: mobile devices, AI, robotics, gaming, fast trains. The key differences twenty years later are access and performance.

Then, around 7% of the global population was online, now its well over 50% (5bn internet users). The growth of Social Media is the single most significant technological development of the past twenty years. Social media, has put mobile devices into the hands and lives of many more people. Now there are more mobiles/cellphones in the world (8bn) than there are people.

Digital?Darwinism. Simply put, as social media grew (exponentially) so did the use of high-definition phone cameras which in turn ushered the demise of the compact digital camera market, a mainstay of most Japanese camera companies.

Ironically, the technology that made social media viable, 3G, was first launched in Japan and had been available since 2001 (by NTT DoCoMo).

Then touch screens happened. Ironically again, in 2003 the Nintendo DS portable gaming device was one of the first products to feature a touch screen. It was a touch screen (with apps and usability) on Apple’s 2007’s iPhone that soon began to chomp through Blackberrys and Nokias like a Pac-Man - and the flip-phones of NEC, Sony, Fujitsu and Panasonic too.

Sony was just as well positioned to compete with Apple’s iPod, but it stuttered, because at the time, Sony’s software development was not quite as advanced or as fluid as Apple’s. Additionally there were music format (DRM) complexities at Sony Music while Apple pushed ahead by adopting the MP3 format, which also had better usability.

Because Sony invented the miniaturised portable music player market with the original Walkman - as well as many other early analogue and digital products - it seems astounding now that history has turned out like it has. Apple’s capitalisation in 2023 is $2.6 trillion, Sony’s $111 billion.

Decisions. The apparent shrinkage of the success of Japanese corporations over the past 20 years, particularly in international consumer markets where they once dominated, could also be a result of strategic decisions made by Tokyo governments and corporate board members in the early 2000’s.

Traditionally Japan’s society is well suited to an industrialised model because a key requirement for it to be effective is a diligent, highly educated and socially responsible workforce. A collective, harmonised and organised social and business structure was one of the key reasons for Japan’s pre-eminence in automobiles, consumer products and semi-conductor production. It was Toyota who invented and exported TPS (Toyota Production System) and ‘Kanban’ for the ‘just in time’ model as the global standard for industries such as consumer and automotive products.

However decisions such as off-shoring chip production and manufacturing, largely ignoring a US-style ‘open standard’ for next-generation innovation, an overly-rigid domestic educational system, and perhaps too much focus on domestic markets at the expense of exports, meant that companies in Japan were less able or agile enough in detecting and responding to rapidly changing times, especially around 2007/8.

Although Japan has always had a strong start-up culture, more recently, ground-breaking innovation seem to have been generated by nimble enterprises, VC-funded start-ups or crowd funding elsewhere in the world, as much as from R&D labs in Japan. Of course there are many examples of world-class market-leading innovations that are still born from the established systems, but the development of global e-commerce, online gaming, and streaming services was not being driven from Japan except by those already in entertainment or gaming such as Sony or Nintendo.

Today, no Japanese corporations, not even Toyota, feature in the top 20 global companies (by market capitalisation). Although Japan’s economy remains the world’s 3rd largest, there are many other headwinds, like inflation, a weak yen, an ageing population and of course, more agile and lower-cost global competition.

Japan ranked 13th in the 2021 Global Innovation Index out of 130 countries. When the term ‘innovation’ is used in Japan, it usually refers to products or services that differentiate, address changing markets or unmet consumer needs. But ‘business model innovation’ is a key requirement in Japan too.

So where is the clever yen going in the future? Intelligence and innovation?

Artificial Intelligence?as an industry is growing at 16.4% y/y, and while AI and LLM’s have suddenly become everyone’s favourite/feared subject, in Japan, ‘enhanced reality’ has long been at the spiritual and technological core of culture. Japanese AI, robotics and enhanced reality (VR, AR etc) have been in development for longer than in most other places including Silicon Valley. In Detail, there are examples of commercially viable robotics from 2003 and before, including Asimo (Honda), Aibo (Sony) and perhaps my personal favourite, the tiny 1 cubic centimetre robot EMRoS (Epson).

I would argue that the concept of a digital assistant, avatar or pet, be it an Aibo or Tamagotchi, could only have been conceived and developed (and marketed) in Japan. Asimo, the humanoid bi-pedal robot remains an amazing feat of ingenuity, and engineering excellence, despite being ‘retired’ by Honda last year to focus instead on avatar-style robotics. These projects were, and are, astounding examples of innovative, diligent and focused engineering development. Many were way before their time...

Prescience. In Detail many project examples gave us an accurate glimpse into a future, but one stands out. The Honda Caixa concept vehicle embodies the kind of project I associate with Japanese design thinking. In 2003 the Caixa Unibox car concept featured a modular glass panel/truss frame construction to maximise internal volumes, with features like a built-in mini bike (last mile journey), a flexible seat layout, and natural materials and wood strip floors. Steering was a video-game inspired joystick (pre-Tesla), it features radar and sensors for avoiding pedestrians and other traffic, cameras replaced mirrors, and the dash featured full-width digital displays for navigation and operation. Many of these features are now appearing in production cars 20 years later.

So from the examples in the book, which other brands or product families are still thriving despite everything?

Playtime.?The recently released Super Mario Bros. animated film is an ironic reminder of the lasting influence and emotional connection that Japanese game titles have with generations of gamers around the world. Pokemon, Zelda, Sonic, Mario Kart; titles many designers grew up with. While the Nintendo GameBoy was the granddaddy of portable gaming consoles, it’s the Sony Playstation (PS2 launched 2000, PS5 launched in 2020) which still shines like a beacon as the prime platform for gaming globally. The Japanese gaming industry itself is worth an estimated $72.2 billion in revenue in 2023.

Anime, and animation specialists like Studio Ghibli (’Spirited Away’ was made in 2001) has a huge global following.

In terms of manufacturing, Shimano remain global leaders in cycling componentry. The electronic DuraAce Di2 system is used by almost all current professional road race team bikes. Honda is about to re-enter F1 and thrives in MotoGP and other motorsports. The current Honda e is a worthy distant cousin of the Caixa Unibox concept. Mizuno, Toyota, Asics, Bridgestone, Canon, Yamaha, Seiko, Bridgestone and many others all still thrive.

The Shinkansen still remains the best train system in the world (in my opinion), and has been since 1964.

So, a 2023 edition of Detail would be a little slimmer perhaps - but a no less fascinating book - and one to record again how Japanese design thinking and manufacturing is just as relevant, exciting and influential today as it has always been.

Ps: Have an amazing example of Japanese design, or a personal favourite from Detail (2003 or 2023)? Please share or comment.

Big thanks to the original Detail team. Annie Gardener, Rochelle Kleinberg and Jo Lightfoot (LK).