10 Works that Make Us "Feel that Their Futures Will Be Exciting" Were Selected
KOKUYO Co., Ltd. (Headquarters: Osaka/President: Hidekuni Kuroda) held an award ceremony on February 19 for the selection of ten New Generation Award entries in the international product design competition KOKUYO DESIGN AWARD 2025.
NEW GENERATION Award Ceremony
The KOKUYO DESIGN AWARD is one of the most renowned and historic product design competitions in Japan. It was established by KOKUYO back in 2002, and this year's competition marks its 22nd outing. Besides setting themes that mirror the times and then selecting the most outstanding product designs among all those entered every year, we have also been productizing the winning designs (*Grand Prix and Merit Awards) through co-creation between the award winners themselves and KOKUYO's product developers.
The "NEW GENERATION Award" is an award that was newly established from the previous KOKUYO DESIGN AWARD 2024. For this award, works submitted by students are not judged based on whether they can be productized, but on whether they have appealing ideas and viewpoints. Our goal is to encourage the next generation of young people to take on the next challenge.
The selection criteria were that the work should have exciting elements and align with KOKUYO's purpose of bringing a tomorrow that people can't wait for. During the judging, KOKUYO employees exchanged opinions about each work, thinking outside the boundaries of their jobs. As a result, ten winners were selected and awarded with a trophy and cash prize of 30,000 yen at the award ceremony.
1. The KOKUYO DESIGN AWARD NEW GENERATION AWARD Winning Works (Order of Entry)
| Title | Designer Name |
|---|---|
|
The Way the Wind Turns |
Haruki Ichijo |
|
Juicy Fruits |
Chen Cheng, Wang Chao |
|
Time-Zone Love |
Jiang Xiaowen, Zhou Yitong |
|
Art Material for Wiping |
SINCE 2001（Taishin Hirai, Kansei Nagashima ） |
|
Distinguishable umbrella stand |
Shunsuke Hino |
|
STRATA |
Maki Iwaya |
|
prot note |
watage（Yura Kurita, Kanai Tanaka, Emiri Noma, Naho Kawaguchi） |
|
Light Planner |
XGL（Gao Rong,Xie Min, Liu Yushuang） |
|
icy drops |
Touko Yamada |
|
po-po-cutter |
Waka Shigeyama |
The presentation sheets, descriptions of the entries, and comments by the judges are available on the KOKUYO DESIGN AWARD website.
https://www.kokuyo.com/en/award/archive/prizepast/2025/ng/
2. KOKUYO DESIGN AWARD 2025 Final Judging, Award Ceremony, and Talk Show
The final judging to decide the Grand Prix and Excellence Award for the "KOKUYO DESIGN AWARD 2025" will be held on Saturday, March 15th, followed by an awards ceremony and a talk show with the winners and judges in the evening of the same day. The awards ceremony and talk show will be streamed live on the KOKUYO DESIGN AWARD YouTube channel.
■Date and Time
Saturday, March 15, 18:30-20:00(tentative)
■[Livestream channels]
KOKUYO DESIGN AWARD YouTube channel.
https://www.youtube.com/c/KokuyoDesignAward
※Details of the content will be available on the KOKUYO homepage from March 15, 2025 (sat).
https://kokuyo.jp/pr/award/
※The live broadcast will be available in Japanese only.
English subtitled version to be released at a later date
The website will be updated, and information will be posted on these social networks.
・Facebook (in Japanese and English)：https://www.facebook.com/KokuyoDesignAward.japan/
・Instagram (in Japanese and English)：https://www.instagram.com/kokuyo_designaward
・X (in Japanese) ：https://twitter.com/kokuyo_DA
・LINE account name (in Japanese)：@kokuyo_da
