OUGD603 - Research led brief - Creating content

For the naming of the book I decided upon 'Made in Japan (1945-1991) : Innovation in the Economic Miracle' The title can be shortened to just 'Made in Japan (1945-1991)' or to give full context it can be full length.

As the purpose of the book is to highlight and celebrate Japan's changing culture and its effect on the world following the war. To portray this I decided to focus on the stages of the economic miracle, and use them as chapters in the book. This will help give the book order and narrative but also show the gradual change and development of Japan since the war.

From research I learnt the stages of the economic miracle are as follows:

• The recovery stage (1946-1954)
• The high increase (1955-1972)
• The steady increase (1972-1992)
• The low increase (1992-2017)

However, I'm only going to focus on the Economic Miracle up to 1991. This is because the economic miracle was perceived to end when the Cold War ended. As originally the U.S. was concerned with the growth of the economy of Japan because there was a risk after World War two that an unhappy Japanese population would turn to communism and by doing so ensure that the Soviet Union would control the Pacific. Also by the 1990s, Japan's began stagnating and the workforce was no longer expanding as it did in previous decades, so the 'economic miracle was perceived to finish. Although countless more innovations occurred after 1991 such as Playstations, electric cars, LED lights and robots, they are classed as a part of the low increase and not the economic miracle.

Once I had the chapters sorted, it was time to collate content to include within the timeframes of the economic miracle. My research to this point helped me with this, as I had already been looking at the numerous creations to come from Japan. It was now just a matter of selecting appropriate ones and putting them into the Economic Miracle chapters. Also I didn't just want to focus on technological innovations, but I wanted to cover a broad spectrum of the factors that helped Japan following the war. This ranged from entertainment, the arts, engineering etc. The content is as follow:

THE RECOVERY STAGE (1945 - 1954)

FAKE FOOD - 1945
ELECTRIC RICE COOKER - 1955
ASTRO BOY - 1952
KAIJU - 1954
GODZILLA - 1954

THE HIGH INCREASE (1955 - 1972)

SONY TR-55 RADIO - 1955
CASIO ELECTRONIC CALCUATOR - 1957
INSTANT NOODLES - 1958
SONY TX8-301 - 1959
HONDA 125CC RC143 - 1961
BULLET TRAIN - 1964
SEIKO ASTRON - 1969
TECHNICS SP-10 - 1969
POCKET CALCUATOR - 1970
PANASONIC IC TV MODEL - 1970
SONY VIDEO CASSETTE - 1970
KAROKE MACHINE - 1970

THE STEADY INCREASE (1972 - 1992)

VHS - 1976
BEAT EM UP - 1976
SPACE INVADER - 1978
SONY WALKMAN - 1979
ROLAND 808 - 1980
PLATFORM GAME - 1980
SONY MAVICA - 1981
DONKEY KONG - 1981
COMPACT DISC - 1982
EPSON HX-20 LAPTOP - 1982
D-PAD 1982
MARIO BROS - 1983
SONY DISCMAN - 1984
SUDOKU - 1984
FLASH MEMORY - 1984
GAME BOY - 1989

To accompany each innovation would be a selection of images and body copy. For the images I carefully selected hi-res images from online, and saving the rightful owners URL along the way to credit them in the book. I sorted the images into folders to create order that would benefit the workflow once designing.

For the copy within the book, the opening pages will have an introduction to inform the reader of the scope of the book. This content will be my own and will almost be an mini essay of my findings from research, informing the reader of the Economic Miracle and its impact on post war Japan. Then for the short descriptions of the innovations, I will collate copy from trusty sources then reword them to make the overall content style similar and not fragmented.