History and Timeline

Founding members of JIDA

The Japan Industrial Design Association (JIDA) was founded in 1952 by 25 members and is the only national public interest incorporated association in the field of industrial design.

In 1957, JID was one of the first associations to join what was then known as the International Council of Societies of Industrial Designers (styled ICSID). Thereafter, as the domestic economy developed and industry progressed apace, JIDA gradually expanded, and the Ministry of International Trade and Industry (today the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry) approved JIDA as a corporation in 1969. In hopes of contributing to society, we have since been expanding our activities to establish the professional skills of industrial designers and promote and develop design.
Unrestricted by Japan’s national boundaries, JIDA’s work extended overseas. We hosted ICSID at the Kyoto Congress in 1973 and again in Nagoya in 1989.

In 1997 in Shinshūshinmachi, Nagano Prefecture, we opened the first building of the JIDA Design Museum and began the Design Museum Selection Awards in 1999, sample production in 2005, and product design certification in 2010. One after another, new projects were conceived until they became the pillars of our six approved public interest projects.
JIDA received authorization as a public interest incorporated association in 2012. In April of 2021, we changed our name to the Japan Industrial Design Association, shedding the skin of a professional association to emerge a public interest incorporated association in true and literal form, contributing to the public and society.

Although JIDA’s members were primarily freelance and in-house designers and those involved in design education and promotion across the country, our rebirth as a design association now means creatives of new and various disciplines related to the expanding field of industrial design may now participate.

Although JIDA’s members are primarily freelance and in-house designers and those involved in design education and promotion across the country, JIDA has begun recently to develop exciting activities for friends of the association, including students majoring in design and individuals interested in the field.JIDA is developing exciting activities for student members majoring in design and for individuals interested but not professionals in the field who may join the association as supporting members.

■ History of JIDA

(Some of the wording on this page has been posted on Wikipedia)