Around Beauty Meetup is a gathering of innovators, both inside and outside the beauty industry, held at S/PARK. The theme of the sixth event was "visual making," which is undergoing a transformation due to the impact of the new coronavirus infectious. As a Transformation Designer working for a large company, Kai Tamura has promoted workshops using the fundamental expressive behavior of "Rakugaki", meaning scribble, working together with his colleagues to create spaces and organizations. We invited Kai Tamura as a guest speaker to deliver a discussion on cosmetic activities, including visual making, and changes in the meaning of cosmetics.

This Around Beauty Meetup was also the first in which outside participants were invited as an online session. At the start time, participants from various departments of the Shiseido Global Innovation Center, as well as people who are working in diverse companies and organizations, logged in to the session. The proceedings began amidst an air of slight tension and a lot of excitement.

At the beginning of the meeting, Yuko Nakanishi, leader of fibona, talked about the theme and expectations of the event. "The way we communicate has changed dramatically since the outbreak of the coronavirus infection. I hope this meeting will help us think about what we should trust in the changing world and what we would like to share, as well as what the significance of cosmetics is and what new cosmetics are. Tamura is always one of those people who practice self-branding in his fashion with polka dot patterns, so I’m looking forward to hearing him talk about it."

A Unique Online Ice Breaker to Collaborate with Visual Information

After the opening, the ice breaker began. At in-person events, the ice breaker is a time for participants to get to know each other and share their expectations, but this is difficult to do in an online event. So what was adopted this time were visualizations of self-introductions through online co-editing. Yukiko Koga, a fibona facilitator, sad, "Please enter your nickname, what you usually do, and your current mood. Then, let’s start!" Many cursors were moving around on the joint editing sheets. While watching the situation, Mr. Tamura turned on his microphone. "Watching the letters being entered on the co-editing screen makes you feel that everyone is here. In a sense, this is also a graphic, and you can sense the people's presence as visual information. It's nice to be able to feel the liveliness of people outside of the camera," he said, sharing his impression of the power of visuals.

Let’s become extremely conscious of the factors that control us

After the excitement of the ice breaker, Mr. Tamura's guest presentation began.

Mr. Tamura currently refers to his title as Transformation Designer. This is because his current work at Fujitsu is related to corporate transformation, and he has been initiating change through the use of design elements in his external activities as well. Mr. Tamura's “my purpose” is to raise the level of creativity in the world one level. Mr. Tamura believes that the world doesn't change with the appearance of a single superhero, but rather that the good points of various people are gradually drawn out and connected to change.

At the beginning of the presentation, Mr. Tamura first touched on the importance of visual information, referring to the saying, "seeing is believing," as well as data related to the five senses and awareness. He also explained that various elements are involved in the process of designing to create this visual information. Assumptions such as color psychology, the concept of affordance in which the environment itself gives meaning to humans and animals, and the concept of common sense and absurdity in each culture are examples of the elements.

In other words, in order for us to control people's feelings and behavior, not only through design but also through visual information, we must be aware of the factors involved in control. This is why Mr. Tamura believes that it is important to first feel, observe, and analyze everyday life in a hyper-conscious manner for effective visual making.

“Emography®”, a visual making for conveying emotions

One thing Mr. Tamura has unconsciously continued to do from childhood is "Rakugaki." Sometimes, he draws an image before it becomes a word, but he has also published a book and launched a course on Rakugaki so that people can more consciously draw pictures and convey their thoughts. Through these activities, Mr. Tamura has also created the Emography® method.

Speaking to the participants, Mr. Tamara said, "Get a pen and paper ready and let’s do this together." Emography® is a term that Mr. Tamura created by combining the words “emotion” and ”graphy.” It is designed to draw 100 different facial expressions using five mouth shapes, five eye shapes, and four eyebrow shapes, which we instinctively look at when reading facial expressions.

For example, simply changing the mouth shape will change the expression, or the emotion that is conveyed. What is even more interesting is that by simply adding the emography expression next to a word, the emotion behind that word is conveyed. Mr. Tamura says she used this method with her child to get them to eat carrots, which her child doesn't like. In order to make Mr. Carrot happy, we’ll make curry, so we need to go to the supermarket to buy meat. The story would be made from an emotional point of view, leading to what actions to take.

Emography is also used when Mr. Tamura makes graphic recordings (activities to visualize people's dialogues and discussions with graphics) at various events.

The demonstrations were a big hit with the participants. There were many impressions, such as, "It looks easy to use!", "It looks like it's going to be popular!", and "I'm listening while drawing!"

Face others or yourself through fashion and your own body

The conversation then turned to the topic of fashion. Mr. Tamura is famous among his acquaintances for his polka-dot fashion, but there is actually a reason why he started wearing the polka-dot pattern clothes. There was an incident in which he met a person with prosopagnosia, a condition in which a person can’t recognize faces or distinguish facial expressions, for a second time, and they were able to recognize him because he was wearing the same polka-dot clothes from the first time they met. Realizing the strength fashion can have on helping someone recognize you, he has been wearing polka dots for the past ten years.

Last year, just before turning 40, Mr. Tamura heard from a friend that Confucius once said, "forty years old is not the age to set limits.", so he tried to control himself without making limitations. With the theme of "Aging in the best condition I’ve ever," he started going to the gym. What he learned was that it is more sensible to have a body that looks good in any clothes instead of only in fashionable clothes, and that it is more important to have a good relationship with your body, such as muscles, rather than fighting aging.

Visual making that changes from “To You” to “To Me” in a new lifestyle

Just as he was thinking that way, a situation suddenly came about where he was conducting work and events through online due to COVID-19. Initially, Mr. Tamura questioned how well emotion could be conveyed online, and decided to improve the visual and audio quality delivered to people by getting a good PC, microphone, and SLR camera. However, nearly half a year later, his team has discontinued using cameras in meetings with colleagues. Mr. Tamura things the reason for this is that, "If I continue videoconferencing in during work-from-home, I will be more aware of how I am talking and what others are doing than I have ever been, and as a consequence I get very tired."

Based on this realization, Mr. Tamura feels that it is important to pay attention to the visuals of our icons that we set up for work applications and SNS. Because people have the instinct to fill in missing information, it is good to supplement the information with icons. In addition, while it was important to visualize dialogues that flow because they were face-to-face, in online communications, information and feelings are constantly visualized and left behind with chat texts, pictographs, and stamps. In other words, in terms of new ways of working, Mr. Tamura believes that we are placing even more importance on visual making than before.

Mr. Tamura says he has another realization as well.
As we continue to go off-camera without seeing each other in real life, Mr. Tamura feels that he used to do visual making to promote understanding of the other party, but now he probably started visual making to control his unconsciousness. For example, Mr. Tamura has recently changed his hairstyle to naturally relaxed bangs, and has started wearing t-shirts with no buttons that are more comfortable than those with buttons. In other words, instead of enduring to create the image of yourself that you want others to see, this means that he is unconsciously trying to make his mind, body, and environment comfortable. Mr. Tamura described this as becoming a "Me to Me" worldwide.

Mr. Tamura wants to think about visual making, how he can create something that is "me" or something that says "I can be comfortable with myself at all times." and "What can I do to make myself better?". Mr. Tamura concluded his presentation with the comment that in order to have such questions and to find the answer, it is important to conscious of our daily lives.

Nurture, express yourself in a place to show, release the sacrifice you have put up with

The panel session followed directly after that. Two panelists, Kiyoshi Takahashi and Kota Oshibuchi, are from the Shiseido Global Innovation Center. Takahashi is a researcher who usually develops point makeup such as eye shadow and base makeup products such as foundation and face powder. He says he is concerned about the changes in the impression that the corona virus has brought. Oshibuchi, on the other hand, has been involved in the development and quality evaluation of a wide range of cosmetics, including skin care, hair, and makeup products. In addition to the two members, fibona member Koga also started a session while participating in the conversation.

The first topic covered was "What visualizations are needed in the new normal life changed by the new coronavirus?"

Mr. Tamura said, "I used to use BB cream when I met people in real life, but now I am using cream that will nourish me." Oshibuchi also said, "I had a similar episode. During lock down, I was doing exercising and growing vegetable in my garden. Because of this experience, I became more conscious of nurturing rather than showing, and that may be because I have more time to face my own skin. “If I think of that, I feel that the possibilities of skin care are more widespread than ever." He shared his perspective by looking again at his very unconscious behavior.

Takahashi has been involved in the development of face makeup powder for about six months, so he is concerned about masks that largely cover the face. He said, "Wearing masks has become the norm, so the eyes are the place where the impression changes most,". "In the chat, comments such as "I can’t stop spending on eye shadows" and "I'm worried about eyebrows" were written, but for those who usually wear makeup, masks have changed where you show other people. This is why eyebrows were drawn more strongly. In the chat "I felt the power of eyebrows even in the Emography handout." Other chat topics included how to make an impression in the area to be shown, such as "accessories should be large."

When Koga asked "What about hair styles?", Mr. Tamura responded, "I think some people turn on their own switch by getting a new hairstyle, but in my case I stopped doing it. It's a mysterious sensation, but I realized that it wasn't for me. It’s the same with shirts. I didn't really like to wear dress shirts that I've worn before. I'm staying at home a lot, and when I go out in the hot weather, I've got less patience than I had to do before, so maybe I don’t have to endure it anymore." Takahashi then said, "Actually, I have a beard. If I shave it, it hurts and irritates my skin, so I grew it out during lockdown." Everyone admitted that they had in fact been holding back something because they had to show people. Perhaps the very first thing Mr. Tamura said about "Me to Me"" is the very thing about ""opening up the sacrifice that he was unconscious."

Because we look at people in a hyperconscious way, the possibilities for research are expanded

The conversation then turned from talking about their own changes to focus on changes in research approaches for cosmetics. Takahashi said that “Researchers who develop cosmetics are good at looking at phenomena (of objects and materials) and quantifying them. On the other hand, as a result of today's discussion, I was very impressed by the fact that Mr. Tamura looks at people's behavior and interprets it to express himself as well. I think it is important for the post-COVID-19 world to see people more consciously than ever before". Mr. Tamura responded, "Since our previous assumptions have suddenly changed, I believe that we are now at the forefront of a variety of phenomena that are occurring simultaneously and will change into observable phenomena in the future. In other words, there may be many icebergs hiding in the ocean that are about to pop their heads out. I feel that the moment we consciously look at them and share with those around us, 'Perhaps there is an iceberg here,' something like that will happen, and we will get some support." Oshibuchi added, "Looking at the various signs in response to this discussion, I think that while cosmetics have so far approached the senses of smell and touch in addition to sight, it may be possible to approach other senses, such as the auditory sense, and this may expand the potentials of cosmetics”.

Afterwards, a lively conversation with Mr. Tamura followed around the changes that are occurring unconsciously around us, such as the hypothesis that this environmental change may have resulted in the multipolar nature of what had been moving in an inseparable, one-way direction until now, and the use of things like lens blurring in video conferences to give the impression of a real atmosphere.

In the Q&A sessions, the participants asked questions about what they needed to do to become super-conscious, and the discussion continued on even in small group discussions.

Take a hypothesis, talk about it, and come up with new solutions together

The closing session was again carried out with each participant writing their impressions on the editorial sheet used in the ice breaker. When Koga, the facilitator, turned the microphone over to several people in the online audience and asked for their impressions, some said "We are also discussing after COVID-19 in my company, but today it was very fresh because it was told in terms of cosmetics and beauty."

Oshibuchi said "Because this is a time of great change, I would like to take the initiative in taking action based on the view that new options have increased." Takahashi said, "In order to take action, it is important for people to become more sensitive to the places where they are changing. I would like to see people act super-consciously in order to approach them unconsciously, and I would like to use this as a trigger for development."

This time, after the change an on-line meeting, it was the first time in a while that we invited participants from different fields, and during the panel session, there was an exchange below when talking about changes in people and visuals in the New Normal.

"I think that the signs that everyone is beginning to see are different, so it may be important to communicate that. There are also participants from far away today, and I think that there are more opportunities to do that now." - Mr. Tamura said.

"I was very sympathetic. In this environment, , the world has become smaller and closer. Tamura said that one way to raise the level of creativity in the world is to combine ideas from different people in various ways, and I thing that it is what is happening right now." - Takahashi said.

Perhaps it is still difficult to have clear answers or fixed perspective on the theme of this Meetup because the environments are constantly changing. That is why it is very important to turn our attention to human change in a super-conscious manner, to have a hypothesis, and to talk about and think together about new actions. We hope that through this meetup, we will be able to meet peers from different fields who can talk like that without worrying about it while taking advantage of their online features and we can develop awareness and action.

[Profile]
Kai Tamura (Transformation Designer)

Transformation Designer who designs mechanisms and systems for change by working with people and organizations. His purpose is to "Raise the level of creativity in the world to one level.” While working as an office worker, he started a personal project called "Happy Rakugaki Life" to raise creativity, launched "Graphic Catalyst Biotope", a team to create a place and a new organization using graphics, and is involved in various activities such as the deputy director of SOMA, an educational NPO. Currently, he is supporting the company-wide DX implementation at Fujitsu, his main job, from a design perspective.

His trademark is the polka-dot shirt, and his recent hobbies are sauna and fitness. Author of the book "Rakugaki Note Technique (Ei-Publishing)"