Welcome to the Collab Journal

November 2024

Dear Friends,

Japanese design has held a place in our collective Collab hearts since 1986, when the first Design Excellence Award honored the extraordinary George Nakashima. While much in the world has changed in the last five decades since its founding, Collab’s dedication to presenting the best in design is unwavering.

This year, it is our great pleasure to celebrate Naoto Fukasawa as the 2024 Collab Design Excellence Award honoree. Naoto Fukasawa’s in-person, illustrated presentation at the Philadelphia Museum of Art will occur on Thursday, December 12th, followed by the opening of the designer’s first major US exhibition. We hope that you will join us for this special occasion to celebrate Naoto Fukasawa as he is presented with this distinguished honor by Collab and the Philadelphia Museum of Art.

The exhibition Naoto Fukasawa: Things in Themselves (12/13/2024 – 4/20/2024) on view in Collab Gallery 219, features furniture, objects and electronics that illustrate the designer’s philosophy of longevity, accessibility and subtle humor over novelty or blatant commercialism. It is stunning and we know that you will love it.

This edition of the Journal includes work by national design school students responding to a design prospectus inspired by Fukasawa in the Collab Student Design Competition; images from a members’ behind-the-scenes tour of RAIR Philly; and images from the DesignPhiladelphia / Collab panel discussion “Bridging the Future: Design Education and  K-12 Innovation Pipelines.”

Consider becoming a member of Collab, connecting at Collab events, following us on Instagram (@collabpma) and Facebook (collab.philamuseum), and sharing your own design ideas.

Eileen Tognini and Jermaine Jenkins, Collab Co-Chairs