From prototyping to implementation, young designers take the lead and make all the decisions in their own in-house projects, allowing them to learn from each other.

Since 2018, JVCKENWOOD Design has been running an in-house project to exhibit at Maker Faire, an event for employees in their first or second year at the company, where they exhibit and demonstrate original works that utilize new technology with unique ideas. The event serves as a forum for co-creation among in-house designers with diverse specialties, and has produced a variety of unique works to date, not limited to product design.

Five designers participated in a project at Maker Faire 2024, held at Tokyo Big Sight for two days on September 21st (Sat) and 22nd (Sun), 2024, where they worked on designing a "new sound experience." The five members look back on the behind-the-scenes of the project, where they experienced every decision-making process, from planning and prototyping to implementation through co-creation with partner companies.

Maker Faire Tokyo 2024

While demonstrating their respective expertiseA new sound experienceDesign

JVCKENWOOD Design has exhibited at Maker Faire every year since 2018, but what theme did you tackle for 2024?

Woods　In exhibiting at Maker Faire, JVCKENWOOD Design's goal is to "use design to convey the joy of sound and video to children." In addition, a different production theme is prepared each year, and for 2024, we worked on "a new sound experience that can be enjoyed by a wide range of people."

How did you decide on the division of roles?

Akaike　Based on what everyone wanted to do, roles were naturally decided as each person demonstrated their expertise. I had studied interaction and experience design at university, so I thought about screen transitions on large displays and the flow of the entire experience.

Woods　I was mainly in charge of managing the schedule and budget, and other things that needed to be decided clearly in order to move the project forward.

(I.e.　In addition to graphic design, character design, and illustration, I had some experience with game development software such as Unity during my university days, so I also served as the liaison with the cooperating company in charge of development.

Zhang　I was in charge of product design, such as the decorations on the tablet stands and pen caps, to create an atmosphere at the venue that children could enjoy.

(I.e.　I was in charge of UI/UX design, and my role was to think about how to design an experience that would be enjoyable for children, including screen transitions when using the tablet and in-app wording.

A design process that involved trial and error, starting with prototyping

What was the first thing you did to start the production?

Akaike　Before starting production, I visited exhibitions and other venues to gather information, and I also participated in a workshop on the theme of inclusion, which I believe has been put to good use in the production process.

Woods　I thought this theme might be related to inclusive design, so I asked a company that practices inclusive design to hold a workshop.

Akaike　In the workshop I participated in, I was able to experience the process of setting user personas, then brainstorming ideas, and then narrowing them down and converging them.So when we actually started production, after setting personas, we brainstormed ideas for the theme of this project, "a new sound experience," and narrowed it down to three or four before moving forward with the creation of the prototype.

(I.e.　It was difficult to quickly create a game prototype like this one, so it was interesting to demonstrate it in a fairly analog way. At first glance, it looked like a playful prototyping session, where I conveyed the image of the work by holding a ball I bought at a 100-yen shop and moving it around (laughs), but I was able to get frank feedback from a variety of people, including the mentors and managers of the design team I usually belong to.

(I.e.　It was impressive to see the process of ideas coming together as a result of comments from my senior colleagues who looked at the prototype. I was able to experience the joy of progressing with the production process while receiving feedback from a variety of people.

The "Rakugakki" exhibited this time is a piece of work in which illustrations drawn by children on a tablet are projected onto a screen and can be made to play by waving your hand over it. Were there any difficulties in the production process?

Woods　I was quite confused when it came to implementing it.

Akaike　As we worked with the partner companies we commissioned to carry out the development work, many elements emerged that had not been considered at the prototype stage, so we had to discuss them multiple times a day as we moved forward.

(I.e.　We also had a lot of online meetings with partner companies. I've loved games since I was a child, and I have a sense for what feels good when character motions and the timing of sound playback should be. When it was difficult to convey our intentions through text alone, we created video materials and shared the screen while we had repeated discussions.

Rakugakki is a system that assigns sounds to pictures drawn by the participants, and in order to achieve a combination of sound and shape that felt right, we had to create a formula to judge each sound, after assigning sounds that "looked like" the "rounded shapes" and "angular shapes" drawn by the participants, for example. The most difficult part was discussing the criteria for the selected sounds. Zhang-san's research was also helpful.

Zhang　I don't have any programming knowledge myself, but I tried out various things using ChatGPT and other tools and even created a simple demo.

Akaike　We didn't know what the validity was of mapping the sounds that we felt were "similar" to each shape. After looking at related papers and researching the sensory evaluation of waveforms and sounds, we found that there wasn't much difference if we decided intuitively, so in the end we decided based on our own sensibilities.

Designing while learning: an experience only possible with an in-house project

Finally, please tell us your thoughts looking back on this project.

(I.e.　It was very impressive to see the sparkling expressions on the children's faces as they stood in front of the monitor and moved their hands. They were serious when they were drawing, but it was great to see the surprise on their faces when their drawings were displayed on the big screen, and how much fun they seemed to be having. At first, we thought that allowing them to draw directly on the large display might be a new experience, but in the end, by dividing it into two stages, we think we were able to create an experience that the children enjoyed.

(I.e.　I have studied UX design at university, but I have never had the opportunity to see for myself whether I could create something truly good, so I think this opportunity to get direct feedback from children was a valuable experience.

We were also able to survey the children at the venue, and we plan to present what we did at Maker Faire in two papers. Up until now, there hasn't been much movement within the company towards publishing papers, but when I shared my intention to publish a paper with others, several people were interested and approached me, and I was actually able to get advice on presenting my research. I was happy that my own actions inspired people within the company to think, "I'll give it a try myself."

Zhang　Up until now, most of my projects have been related to exterior design, so I think it was good to be involved in a project like "Rakugakki" that wasn't limited to product design. At the same time, the estimation and ordering methods involved in small-scale manufacturing that isn't mass-produced are things that I don't often get to experience in my everyday work, so I think I'll be able to use them in many ways in the future.

(I.e.　The experience of the inclusive design workshop left a lasting impression on me. I had experience creating things by creating personas when I was a student, but by gaining knowledge about inclusive design this time, I was able to put into practice a method of involving the people involved in design in a research project I was involved in after Maker Faire.

Woods　I think I was able to learn about teamwork through this project. Creating something as a team taught me a lot, such as how to communicate with team members and how to tackle parts that require individual effort. This time, we made all the decisions ourselves, so I think it was good that I was able to experience the joys and challenges of creating something from scratch so early on, in my second year at the company.

Akaike　Personally, I think the key point about this project was that I was able to learn as I went along. I think it's difficult to try out many different tools in your everyday work, so I think this project was a unique experience in that it allowed me to feel both the freedom to learn as I went along and the tension of having to finish by the day. I think that having this experience has changed my work sensibilities, so I would like to make use of it in the future.