{"id":3168,"date":"2024-12-23T15:51:12","date_gmt":"2024-12-23T06:51:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.mirai.design.kyushu-u.ac.jp\/?post_type=activity&#038;p=3168"},"modified":"2026-04-22T23:21:26","modified_gmt":"2026-04-22T14:21:26","slug":"think-of-something-wonderful-projects-are-about-designing-potential","status":"publish","type":"activity","link":"https:\/\/www.mirai.design.kyushu-u.ac.jp\/en\/activity\/think-of-something-wonderful-projects-are-about-designing-potential\/","title":{"rendered":"Think of Something Wonderful. - Projects are About Designing Potential -"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Hidetoshi Kuranari, Creative Project Director &amp; Founder of Creative Project Base, was invited to the Design Commons on the Ohashi Campus of Kyushu University on December 23, 2024, to give a talk hosted by the Center for Designed Futures of Kyushu University entitled, \u201cThink of Something Wonderful. &#8211; Projects are About Designing Potential -.\u201d Kuranari has rich experience leading projects in a variety of genres, including diverse advertisements, new project development support for new business departments at various clients, APEC Japan 2010, the Tokyo Motor Show 2011, and others, since originally joining dentsu in 2000. He subsequently formed the dentsu B Team\u3000in 2014 with members who each had alter-egos other than their main occupations (\u201cb-sides\u201d), before establishing Creative Project Base, a project oriented company, in 2020. Given this history and background, Kuranari gave a talk on so-called project-making, covering examples from his own past including client requests, his own initiatives, and collaborations both large and small. A total of 42 students, mainly from the School of Design and Graduate School of Design, participated in the lecture, of which 6 participated online, proving the lecture a great success.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u3000The lecture began with an ice-breaker, typical of Kuranari as an ad industry veteran, in which participants were asked to create their own catch copy with 10 words, drawing them into the lecture as active participants, and this proved to be a simulated advertising experience that forced the participants to think about how to say what to whom that Kuranari had prepared. Kuranari went on to discuss his specific processes and approach regarding project-making, using case studies from projects he actually led, such as his efforts to work with diverse stakeholders including the Saga prefectural government, to transform the Saga 2024 Japan Games &amp; National Sports Festival for People with a Disability into an event that differed from the standard image of the National Sports Festival, the United Rice Ball Project in which he involved embassies to create rice balls containing rice from different countries which were then eaten together with people from those countries, which he carried out because \u201che wanted to,\u201d and the Gyakujuku (Backward School) project which aimed to generate new and unique ideas by thinking backwards.<\/p>\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"aligncenter size-large is-resized\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"514\" src=\"https:\/\/www.mirai.design.kyushu-u.ac.jp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/9eecb5d03012268e1c5679ad6f57980e-1024x514.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-2814\" style=\"width:753px;height:377px\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.mirai.design.kyushu-u.ac.jp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/9eecb5d03012268e1c5679ad6f57980e-1024x514.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/www.mirai.design.kyushu-u.ac.jp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/9eecb5d03012268e1c5679ad6f57980e-300x151.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.mirai.design.kyushu-u.ac.jp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/9eecb5d03012268e1c5679ad6f57980e-768x386.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.mirai.design.kyushu-u.ac.jp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/9eecb5d03012268e1c5679ad6f57980e-1536x771.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/www.mirai.design.kyushu-u.ac.jp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/9eecb5d03012268e1c5679ad6f57980e-2048x1028.jpg 2048w, https:\/\/www.mirai.design.kyushu-u.ac.jp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/9eecb5d03012268e1c5679ad6f57980e-400x201.jpg 400w, https:\/\/www.mirai.design.kyushu-u.ac.jp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/9eecb5d03012268e1c5679ad6f57980e-1200x603.jpg 1200w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n<p>The Q&amp;A session at the end went into overtime with a vigorous stream of questions such as, \u201cWhere do you get the motivation to launch projects on your own without being hired?\u201d, \u201cHow were you able to act freely while working at dentsu?\u201d, and \u201cWhat do you keep in mind when trying to achieve a win-win-win?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u3000In terms of practical design, there is a need to promote projects that fuse design with diverse domains, commercialize and practically apply the results, and strategically apply them to society. Furthermore, students at science-oriented design universities have an advantage in their ability to properly build a foundation for projects, rather than only coming up with ideas and expression. Kuranari spoke of the skills and approaches required to meet such needs giving specific examples and impressive catchphrases such as, \u201cproject design is like civil engineering\u201d, \u201cA career that moves downstream\u201d, and \u201cThe person who notices is responsible to change things\u201d, making the lecture particularly meaningful for the students who would lead the world of design in the future.<\/p>\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"aligncenter size-large is-resized\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"799\" src=\"https:\/\/www.mirai.design.kyushu-u.ac.jp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/7a3c470d144b3b8c895b60be5dc79fe2-1024x799.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-2816\" style=\"width:426px;height:332px\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.mirai.design.kyushu-u.ac.jp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/7a3c470d144b3b8c895b60be5dc79fe2-1024x799.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/www.mirai.design.kyushu-u.ac.jp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/7a3c470d144b3b8c895b60be5dc79fe2-300x234.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.mirai.design.kyushu-u.ac.jp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/7a3c470d144b3b8c895b60be5dc79fe2-768x599.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.mirai.design.kyushu-u.ac.jp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/7a3c470d144b3b8c895b60be5dc79fe2-1536x1198.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/www.mirai.design.kyushu-u.ac.jp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/7a3c470d144b3b8c895b60be5dc79fe2-2048x1597.jpg 2048w, https:\/\/www.mirai.design.kyushu-u.ac.jp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/7a3c470d144b3b8c895b60be5dc79fe2-400x312.jpg 400w, https:\/\/www.mirai.design.kyushu-u.ac.jp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/7a3c470d144b3b8c895b60be5dc79fe2-1200x936.jpg 1200w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center\">Lecturer\u3000<br>Hidetoshi Kuranari \u3000<br>Creative Project Base<br>Creative Project Director &amp; Founder<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center\"><\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":2811,"template":"","activity_category":[241],"class_list":["post-3168","activity","type-activity","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","activity_category-events-en"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mirai.design.kyushu-u.ac.jp\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/activity\/3168","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mirai.design.kyushu-u.ac.jp\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/activity"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mirai.design.kyushu-u.ac.jp\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/activity"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mirai.design.kyushu-u.ac.jp\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2811"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mirai.design.kyushu-u.ac.jp\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3168"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"activity_category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mirai.design.kyushu-u.ac.jp\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/activity_category?post=3168"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}