Translator: Masako Kigami Reviewer: Claire Ghyselen
Hello, everyone. Thank you for the introduction.
My name is indeed Yamanaka, and I am please to be among you.
I'm a designer.
I've realised many projects,
cars, trams, cameras, watches,
furniture, cell phones,
and even a radish grater.
(Laughter)
You probably took the train to come here,
and used your Suica or PASMO card.
I madetheir original design.
Hopefully, it is practical. If not, shame on me.
(Laughter)
I would like to introduce many things today.
But I will focus on one topic
because I have a limited time.
Iwill speak about drawing:
the first step of every project,
when ideating various products.
I think it is easier to understand me if you draw too.
So why notdraw together?
Let's start the drawing!
It's a life show. Let's hope everything works all right.
Shall we start with warming up?
This is a kind of routine for me,
before I start drawing.
I check my hand's fitness.
Cold hands get stiff. It's not so good for drawing.
Well, today too, I have this trouble.
I am checking that my pen is fine
and I test the size I should give to my drawings.
It is similar to the tuning of an orchestra.
It starts with A from the oboe. Oooom.
It's the same as what I am doing now.
I am warming up like this.
I plan todraw illustrations a little bit later.
Itis dim to draw, I'm afraid.
But if you have a piece of paper,
why not draw together and have fun?
Let's imagine you want to draw like a child.
Thank you to the technical staff, it is a bit of brighter.
Like a child.
Let's draw two circles.
What is this?
You have no ideas now, but if I am adding a line,
you may think it's a face.
Thisis a mystery of a human brain.
When you see two circles and a line, you think it's a face.
It hasa neck. And this must be its body.
How do we recognize it's a face?
It is mysterious. We seemany differentfaces.
Our brainsextract a fewelements fromthem
and assume it's aface,
because our experience of "faces" enables us
to extract relevant elements and complete them."
These few elements are enough to let us think about a face.
This imagination capacity is very important,
when you draw a picture.
Now, let's draw a profile.
A child would draw like this.
He would draw a profile this way.
One assumption of this picture is
that both the front face and the profile are circles.
This is not a flat disk; it's spherical!
You know, it is very important to understand this.
Let'sthink about a globe carefully.
Here it is.
It looks like a circle because you see its front.
When you draw something looking like an eye, it looks flat.
When there are things on the front,
the circle is under an horizontal pressure.
If you think the circle is under pressure, it's because you are thinking in 3D.
So let's modify the drawing slightly.
I'll draw an ellipse, no circle anymore.
"This small change" drivesus to think in 3D.
You may think it's 3D because of this little change.
We are very sensitive aboutgeometric changes.
We are looking for clues to determine whether it's a circle ora sphere.
We use this phenomena in paintings.
If you add specific lines, you give perspective to the drawing.
Let's add another twist.
It's a neck.
I am drawingthe body like this.
Suddenly, it looks like a real figure.
It looks like a human, right?
What did I do?
I drew two lines,
keeping in mind that it has a backbone.
You are seeing this plain thing
as a living creature.
I draw the three pictures -
Oh, I can't zoom any further -
0ne next to the other so we can compare them.
I want you tofeel two things from the three pictures.
That is,
There isthe 3D structure, at first.
You draw your 3D structure keeping in mind that this is a sphere.
Second, there is the internal structure.
I drew a backbone, thinking about its skeleton.
If we only add these two little details,
we see the drawing as a 3D body.
Actually, this slight touch of reality is vital.
Realism is often related to picturesque painting.
The link between painting and realism is not what we think.
Realism is based on very simple principles.
Artists draw the details based on these simple bases.
Shall wetry it now?
For example, this is a globe.
I draw an ellipse inside it.
I superpose another ellipse.
It looks a bit creepy, doesn't it?
Asthis3D is a globe, I can draw a cross-sectional line.
I add another one.
I add thickness.
On this side too.
What is this?
Eyelashes.
It's cuter if we make them thicker.
Let's draw the lower eyelid,
and make it look a bit drowsy.
Strong-willed eyebrows.
I draw another 3D element.
(Applause)
I draw an eyeball in this side, another one on the other side,
a nose between them, eyebrows in both sides.
Thinking in 3D when drawing creates realism.
Actually, this is the realism.
On the other hand, reality is very important when I design something.
It is a basic skill of drawing.
Let's go back to ellipses.
The shapes of many artificial things
are elliptic or round.
SoIoften draw ellipses.
I superpose several ones.
Like this.
When I added some ellipses on this side,
Oh, I'm sorry, it looks like a drawing I am currently working on.
When I design artificial things,
piling up elliptic volumes has a triggering effect.
Finally, I will draw a silhouette.
The human body has its own original rhythm.
I draw structure according to each specific rhythm.
Rhythm gives meaning to the shape.
It gives me a chance to see a wonderful friend in the silhouette.
She's a wonderful runner.
She had started running
at the time we met.
She lost her leg in her junior high school days.
I was fascinated with her dynamism.
So I designed a leg for her.
I wanted it to be very functional,
very robust but very light.
Well...
(Applause)
This is the artificial leg I made for my friend, Saki Takakuwa.
Thank you.
(Applause)