I.D. Magazine: Metaphor for State of Affairs
November 3rd, 2005
In their November issue, I.D. Magazine does a special on Japanese Design. While they admit in it: “When [we] last did a Japan issue, the year was 1984 and Ronald Reagan was president,” I still found myself very disapointed with a magazine that supposedly stood for “International Design.”
While they spend half of the issue on neat stuff from Japan, they ignore a far more pressing topic: China. As in their statement, Japan was hot in 1984. Today, with more than 5 times the workers and twice the GDP growth of America (CIA World Factbook), China is starting to look more like the world’s next superpower every day and I.D. Magazine, along with the rest of the United States, is continuing to foolhardily ignore them.
Popularity: 2% [?]
November 7th, 2005 at 3:36 pm
sure…china and india are not to be missed!! one being the manufacturing powerhouse and the other to spear head the information technology boom
November 10th, 2005 at 11:30 am
so the question then becomes: Why are we, as a nation, trying to ignore the powerful roles these countries are starting to take?
(like your site btw
November 12th, 2005 at 10:14 am
oh i don’t think that’s the case. people are very aware of China, and if anything more of India, as designstage.net mentions. Especially as the two nations increasingly move into high-end design. But there’s not nearly the strong dialogue in design and creativity as there is between the US and Japan, a long-standing relationship.
As China interacts more and more with the outside world we’ll hear about Chinese design firms and designers. I do agree that exploring Chinese design would be a great issue for a US publication.