Issue #376 of Japan's IDEA magazine is largely about graphic designers and exhibitions from yesterday, today, and tomorrow. Writers like Tetsuya Goto and IDEA editor-in-chief Kiyonori Muroga explore the meaning of exhibitions to graphic designers today, beginning with a focus on the 27th Brno Biennial 2016, the world’s longest running design biennial. Included is an interview with Radim Peško, Tomáš Celizna, Adam Macháček, the curators of the 2016 Brno Biennial.

Part 2, “The State of Graphic Design Exhibition Today,” covers the USA, Poland and South Korea through interview with Jon Sueda, David Crowley (“International Poser Biennale, Warsaw”), Min Choi and Hyungjin Kim (“Graphic Design, 2007-2015, Seoul”). 

Part 3, “Japanese Graphic Design and the History of Exhibitions and Collections,” offers a chronology of Japanese exhibitions, with texts by Tatsuya Kuji and Tetsuya Goto.

Part 4, “Study Room,” includes contributions from Aaron Nieh, Åbäke, Kyungsun Kymn, Yah-Leng Yu: Foreign Policy Design Group, Yukimasa Matsuda, Kiyonori Muroga, Javin Mo, Leonard Koren, Philippe Egger, Daijiro Ohara, Caryn Aono, Shutaro Mukai, Yoshihisa Shirai, Fumio Tachibana, Guang Yu, Kohei Sugiura, Kenya Hara, Helmut Schmid, Nobuhiro Yamaguchi, heiQuiti Harata, Jens Müller, Shin Akiyama, Xiao Mage & Cheng Zi, Wang Zhi-Hong, Tetsuya Goto, John Warwicker, so+ba: Alex Sonderegger+Susanna Baer, Peter Bil’ak, Ryan Hageman, Kazunari Hattori, Na Kim, Kirti Trivedi, Ian Lynam, Lu Jingren, Santi Lawrachawee, Chris Ro, Randy Nakamura, and Sulki & Min Choi... as well as a text (“Tabula Rasa: Worlds Connecting or Design Mannerism”) by Kiyonori Muroga and Ian Lynam. 

A special photography section called “Arrangement of Objects” presents work by Kazunari Hattori, Uta Eisenreich, and Leonard Koren. Also included: “Language Without Place,” a text by Scott Joseph. This issue also includes a reprint of the supplement Between A and B by Kazunari Hattori as well as an insert (“Which Mirror Do You Want to Lick?”) designed by Åbäke. 

The last section consists of an interview with RETRO print JAM and is the final installment of Barbora and Momo Nonaka's examination of Japanese small press history (“Barbora × Momo Nonaka: All we know about Japanese Zines”), focused on the first half of the 2010s. 

Containing a wealth of bilingual examinations of curation, cultural attitudes, and speculations by some of the leading design curators today, this issue is a dense volume packed with useful insights and graphic inspiration. Multiple inserts, and printing on a variety of paper stocks using assorted printing methods, make this volume a treasured design object itself.

IDEA is Japan's leading graphic design magazine. Each issue offers insight into international and Japanese designers and their work through historical analysis, criticism, and examples of projects. In print since 1953, IDEA is a critical forum for design criticism in Asia. 

Designed by Kensaku Kato, Seigo Kitaoka (LABORATORIES)

Published by Seibundo Shinkosha Co., Ltd.

Bilingual, in Japanese and English

Softcover, 186 pages, 8.9 × 11.75 inches