More Details in Japanese

Award Winners
JOZAKI Tetsuro, CHAN Sarene, MATSUDA Hirokazu

Publication
Graphic Design in Japan 2025 (July 2025)

Award Ceremony
JAGDA General Assembly on 27 June 2025 in Tokyo

Exhibition
Graphic Design in Japan 2025
Friday 27 June – Thursday 7 August 2025 | Tokyo Midtown Design Hub

2025 JAGDA Exhibition: Yusaku Kamekura Design Award and JAGDA New Designer Award
Tuesday 15 July – Wednesday 27 August 2025 | Ginza Graphic Gallery

Selection Process of the JAGDA New Designer Awards 2025

The JAGDA New Designer Awards were established in 1983 with the goals of calling attention to outstanding young designers and energizing the realm of graphic design. The award winners – normally no more than 3 – are selected each year from among all entrants whose works are featured in the JAGDA Annual who have not reached their 40th birthday as of the end of October of the judging year.

• This year 127 designers with works featured in Graphic Design in Japan 2025 qualified as “new designers” (JAGDA members under age 40 as of October 31, 2024). Among these, a first round of voting was held for the 28 individuals who had 3 or more featured works in total selected in the 10 categories (2 or more if the Integrated Design category was included). The featured works of each designer were grouped together at the judging session, and all names were kept anonymous. (In the event that a work was made in collaboration with a member or members above age 40 or with a previous recipient of the New Designer Award, JAGDA rules preclude said work from consideration for a New Designer Award. However, this year snapshots of such works were taken by the JAGDA Secretariat and displayed in the designer’s designated space for reference purposes).

• In this first round, the 28 members of the Selection Committee present were permitted to cast up to 7 votes in total, but they were not required to use up their quota. The outcome showed 9 individual designers garnering 11 or more votes, qualifying them as the award nominees.

• The final round of voting was then conducted, this time with each judge casting 3 votes in total (without the option of not casting all allotted votes). Again, the designers’ names were kept anonymous. In this round each committee member indicated his or her choices for 1st, 2nd and 3rd places; a 1st-place vote was worth 3 points, 2nd place 2 points, and 3rd place 1 point. The results showed a significant gap between the top 3 vote recipients and the designer placing 4th. Accordingly, this year’s JAGDA New Designer Awards were presented to Tetsuro Jozaki (32 points/14 votes), Hirokazu Matsuda (28 points/12 votes), and Sarene Chan (24 points/11 votes).

• A variety of comments were offered by the judges. One stated that the three award winners all demonstrated a fresh approach based on their individual experience, as well as a measured approach toward each of their works. Another opined that this year’s winning works differed in tone from winners of the past several years, this time seeming somewhat more mature. One judge suggested that, as a comment applicable to all entrants this year, unfortunately there were no overwhelmingly new or fresh works, or works of exceptional individuality; rather, the judging venue featured quite a few works seemingly created to attract a positive critique at the judging session. Another judge commented that all nine nominees were worthy of winning the New Designer Award, suggesting that the three winners perhaps showed slightly more individuality.