Design Development for the "Student Study Notebooks" Industry-academia Collaboration Project(Received the Good Design Award in 2017/2020)

This joint study is the development of the design of a “student’s notebook for studying” in which students design a notebook that students really want. This study was conducted by the Kyushu University Faculty of Design’s Sugimoto Laboratory with Sanko Co., Ltd., a comprehensive printing business that is based in Imari, Saga Prefecture.This notebook was designed by the students themselves, and as such the project was undertaken as part of an industry-academic collaboration project, where students from Kyushu University’s Faculty of Design and Graduate School of Design participated.

The three notebooks developed in 2016 and launched in 2017 won the 2017 Good Design Award and the 18th Fukuoka Design Award. They have been sold in approximately 40 stores, primarily in major general merchandise stores around Kyushu, with a total of more than 28,000 notebooks sold over the past two years. Their popularity start the 2019 joint project, which aimed to create a new notebook series. The result was three new types of notebook, which will be available from March 2020 at a number of major mass merchandisers, mostly in Kyushu. The notebooks also won the 2020 Good Design Award and the 21st Fukuoka Design Award.

This research project has become a sustainable activity with benefits for both parties. Students can participate in the an industry-university collaboration between a medium-sized local company and the university, and it allows the company to develop products that meet the needs of students. It has maintained consistency and quality of output under the same supervisor and representative researcher. New students participate every year with a fresh set of eyes for help create new ideas.