Coinciding with the new edition of the bestseller Designing Design, Kenya Hara’s book, Ex-formation, searches for the beginning of design in the unknown.

For Kenya Hara, design begins with comprehension of the unknown. The concept of “exformation,” to which a chapter was already devoted in Designing Design, continues to preoccupy the Japanese designer. In contrast to “information,” “exformation” describes how little we really know and thus becomes the starting point for any type of design.

Based on a range of projects stemming from Kenya Hara’s teaching at the Musashino Art University, the book describes what “exformation” can look like in design practice and how this concept alters our classic understanding of information design.

Coinciding with the new edition of the bestseller Designing Design, Kenya Hara’s book, Ex-formation, searches for the beginning of design in the unknown.

For Kenya Hara, design begins with comprehension of the unknown. The concept of “exformation,” to which a chapter was already devoted in Designing Design, continues to preoccupy the Japanese designer. In contrast to “information,” “exformation” describes how little we really know and thus becomes the starting point for any type of design.

Based on a range of projects stemming from Kenya Hara’s teaching at the Musashino Art University, the book describes what “exformation” can look like in design practice and how this concept alters our classic understanding of information design.

Following the path embarked on in Designing Design (2007) and its successor, White (2010), Ex-formation continues to explore the void, absence, and indeterminacy in contemporary design