Press Release
Craftal Craft Tableware by Culture Generation Japan Is Granted the Bronze A' Design Award in Cultural Heritage and Culture Industry Design
Culture Generation Japan honored for cultural heritage and culture industry design by the international grand jury of the 2021 - 2022 A' Design Award & Competition
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
COMO, Italy, April 22, 2022 /DesignNewswire/ A' Design Award & Competition has announced that Craftal Craft Tableware by Culture Generation Japan, designed for Craftal, has been granted the Bronze A' Design Award in the Cultural Heritage and Culture Industry Design category. The award was conferred within the 2021 - 2022 A' Design Award & Competition and was decided through blind peer review by an international grand jury panel of established academics, design professionals and press members, who assessed anonymized entries against predetermined criteria.
The Bronze A' Design Award Explained
The Bronze A' Design Award is given to outstanding designs that showcase a high degree of creativity and practicality. It recognizes the dedication and skill of designers who produce work that stands out for its thoughtful development and innovative use of materials and technology. These designs are acknowledged for their professional execution and potential to influence industry standards positively. Winning this award highlights the designer's ability to blend form and function effectively, offering solutions that enhance people's lives and wellbeing.
Regarding Craftal Craft Tableware
Craftal is a subscription service that provides Japanese craft tableware to restaurants and households. Users select thirty pieces from a physical gallery or an online catalog, and a curator can help with the selection. The tableware is then delivered for a trial period of three months. After three months, the pieces can be exchanged or returned. Returned items receive maintenance at a distribution center before being sent to another user. The service links craftsmen with the people who use their work, so direct feedback can guide product development.
About Culture Generation Japan
Culture Generation Japan is a business design company that aims to tell world-class Japanese culture to the world. We are building businesses that meet today's needs through business co-creation, while combining the ideas of various stakeholders with the traditions and technologies throughout Japan, to pass on Japanese culture to the next generation.
Award Record
This recognition makes Culture Generation Japan a winner of 1 A' Design Award.
About the A' Cultural Heritage and Culture Industry Design Award
The A' Cultural Heritage Design Award is an international design competition recognizing good designs that preserve, protect, and promote cultural heritage. It is organized within the A' Design Award & Competition and is open to cultural heritage designers, culture industry professionals, cultural heritage specialists and museum designers from all countries. Typical entries include cultural heritage projects, cultural conversation, preservation and restoration and protection projects. The awarded cultural heritage designs are published at https://dezigners.org/design-category/cultural-heritage
About A' Design Award & Competition
Organized annually since 2008, A' Design Award & Competition is an international, juried design accolade. The competition is open to entries from all countries. The philanthropic mission of the A' Design Award is to advance society through good design, by recognizing and promoting superior products, projects and services that benefit society, and by creating a global awareness and appreciation for good design practices and principles. Nominations are peer reviewed and evaluated anonymously by an international grand jury panel of established academics, design professionals and press members against predetermined criteria such as functionality, ergonomics, engineering, presentation, innovation, usability, sustainability and technology, with score normalization applied to remove biases. Awards are conferred at Platinum, Gold, Silver, Bronze and Iron levels. Eligible laureates receive the A' Design Prize, which includes the award trophy, the certificate of design excellence, the hardcover yearbook, a lifetime license to use the A' Design Award winner logo, exhibition of awarded works, an invitation to the gala night and award ceremony in Italy, inclusion in the World Design Rankings and Designer Rankings, and public relations and publicity services. Registration, uploading a work and receiving a preliminary score are free of charge, and Professional and Digital Edition laureates are not contractually obliged to pay further fees to claim the A' Design Prize. More information is available at https://competition.adesignaward.com
Press Resources
- Winner Page: https://dezigners.org/139328
- A' Design Award Page: https://competition.adesignaward.com/139328
- Media Showcase: https://www.designnewsroom.com/!139328
- Laureate Profile: https://dezigners.org/d/330139
- Further Information from the Laureate: https://craftal.jp/
Media Contact
Giulia Ferrari, Press Office
Designers.Org
Via Leone Leoni 32, 22100 Como, Italy
press@designers.org
+39 031 4491953
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Fact Sheet
The Work
- Project
- Craftal Craft Tableware
- Function
- Craft Tableware
- Category
- Cultural Heritage and Culture Industry Design
- Discipline
- Communication Design
- Industry
- Arts and Social Impact
- Colors
- Dark Gray, Dark Slate Gray, Dark Olive Green, Rosy Brown and Gray
- Images
- 5
- Client
- Craftal
The Recognition
- Laureate
- Culture Generation Japan
- Country
- Japan
- Recognition
- Bronze A' Design Award
- Edition
- 2021 - 2022
- Design ID
- #139328
Credits
- Team
- Takuya Hotta, Hideya Izawa, Shugo Urata, Aki Yasuda, Takahiro Tsuchida and Yumi Takahashi
Design Details
- Unique Properties
- Craftal is a subscription service that provides Japanese craft tableware to restaurants and households, fostering a new environment where people can meet a wide variety of traditional crafts from all over Japan. This platform to solve these issues faced by both the restaurant side and the craftsmen, and we have now we started working directly with chefs to develop highly usable tableware products by incorporating their feedback and experiences.
- Inspiration
- The Japanese traditional craft industry is facing problems such as declining sales, labor shortage, product development, and lack of ability to develop sales channels in each process from production to sales due to the division of labor. On the other hand, although there is a need for restaurants to use traditional crafts, there are not many opportunities to purchase them because of the time and cost involved. This service was created in the process of thinking of ways to solve such problems.
- Research
- We conducted interviews with numerous hotels and restaurants and found that for restauranteurs, they wanted to purchase a wide variety of tableware to pair with seasonal menus, but there were three main barriers to this: 1) price, 2) storage, 3) opportunity cost (ie. time spent researching and purchasing). Also, we learned that there are many levels of middlemen, which means that craftsmen cannot directly get feedback from the restauranteurs, affecting standards for product development.
- Challenge
- When Craftal was first launched, COVID-19 infections began to spread around the world in early 2020. Since our initial target, which consisted of restaurants that were negatively impacted by this, we had a difficult time promoting the service. Our response was to start a B2C service targeting individual households and we were able to increase awareness of the service this way. Also, we tried to appeal to a larger group of customers, and realised there was a need from restaurants specialising in Western cuisine, which we did not foresee as our initial focus on just Japanese restaurants.
- Realization and Technology
- Craftal’s business model was designed to solve problems faced by both craftsmen who make tableware and the restaurants who use them. For craftsmen, it is difficult for them to sell expensive products, but it is difficult for them to expand their craft if they only make pieces that can be sold cheaply. For restauranteurs, buying a wide variety of tableware is expensive, especially because they have to rotate it seasonally to pair with changing dishes depending on the time of year.
- Operation and Interaction
- 1. Users select 30 tableware pieces from the physical gallery or online catalog. Specially tailor-fit selections based on consultations by a curator is also available. 2. Once inventory is confirmed at the distribution center, the tableware will be sent to the restaurant for an initial trial period of three months. 3. After three months, the customer will either exchange or return the tableware pieces, and those returned will undergo maintenance at the distribution center before being sent to use at another restaurant.
- Project Duration and Location
- The service was first established in June 2019 in Tokyo as a B2B platform connecting restauranteurs and craftsmen in Japan and is still continuing to this day. Targeting individual households, the B2C service was launched in May 2020 to address people spending more time at home due to the spread of COVID-19 infection.
- Specifications
- The current scale of the business is as follows: 1) More than 300 products available, 2) Over 30 restaurants, 3) Over 50 end-users, 4) Over 50 craftsmen and artisans, 5) Over 500 people participating in trial events.
- Keywords
- Japanese traditional craft industry, Japanese tableware, subscription service, craftsmanship, Japanese craft, circular economy, sustainability, craftal
