A Chindogu must exist - Philadelphia University

A CHINDOGU 

MUST EXIST 

by Evan Ratliff 

photos by Julie Marquart 

Don’t Laugh: Those Wacky 

Japanese Inventions Are 

Making a Comeback. 

THUMBZIPPERRING 

Designer: Ryan Moore 

Problem: Thick digits incapable of 

snatching zipper. 

Solution: Loop facilitates easy grab. 

48

INSTRUCTIONALPLACEMAT 

We’d be millionaires. Our idea was bigger than 

our Handy-Sun palm-shaped sunscreen applicator 

or Jesucles Christian-themed Popsicles. The 

device: a thin piece of clear plastic embedded 

with what appeared to be broken glass. Stashed 

in the trunk of a car, it could be rolled out into a 

neighborhood parking space upon departure, 

deterring fellow drivers from nabbing coveted 

spots. We branded it the Shatter-Park. We 

would patent it. Pay dirt would follow. 

The Shatter-Park, it turned out, was no idle 

barstool concoction. It was a Chindogu, in the 

same class as breakthroughs like the Hay Fever 

Hat (which dispenses toilet paper for nose-blowing), 

the Soap Recycler (a vice that mashes leftover 

bits together), and the Portable Stoplight (a handheld 

traffic signal for pedestrians). These and hundreds 

more are the brainchildren of Japan’s Kenji 

Kawakami, creator of the decade-old art of “unuseless 

invention.” Literally, Chindogu means “strange tool” (the 

“unuseless” tag refers to objects that, while not exactly 

without purpose, barely justify their own existence). In 

short, they are objects whose designs go to extraordinary—and 

often ridiculously cumbersome—lengths to 

solve everyday problems. 

In the early 1990s, Kawakami, now 55, dreamed up all 

kinds of unuseless objects while editing a Japanese magazine 

that reviewed mail order catalogs. A former 

scriptwriter for television and designer of the Japanese 

Bicycle Museum, Kawakami published a few of his inventions 

and discovered that they were wildly popular 

among his readers. Around the same 

time, he crossed paths with Dan Papia, 

who edited the English-language magazine 

Tokyo Journal, and whose claim to 

fame was christening the Tokyo Dome 

the Big Egg. Papia helped Kawakami 

10 

of 

1ne 

2wo 

Designer: Emory Krall 

Problem: Table setting protocols complex 

and difficult to remember. 

Solution: Provide detailed template. 

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 

TENETS 

CHINDOGU 

Adapted from Kenji Kawakami’s 

101 Unuseless Japanese Inventions: 

The Art of Chindogu 

Chindogu cannot be for real use. 

It is fundamental to the spirit of Chindogu that inventions claiming 

Chindogu status must be, from the practical point of view, 

(almost) completely useless. If you invent something which turns 

out to be so handy that you use it all the time, then you have 

failed to make a Chindogu. Try the Patent Office. 

A Chindogu must exist. 

You’re not allowed to use a Chindogu, but it must be made. You 

have to be able to hold it in your hand and think, “I can actually 

imagine someone using this. Almost.” In order to be useless, it 

must first be. 

49

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 

TABLETRASHCAN 

“CHINDOGU IS THE ANTITHE 

PROFESSOR JOSH OWEN. 

4our 

5ive 

Designer: Shaun Smith 

Problem: Energy spent transporting 

trash from table to receptacle. 

Solution: Eliminate distance variable. 

Inherent in Chindogu is the spirit of anarchy. 

3hree Chindogu are man-made objects that have broken free from the 

chains of usefulness. They represent freedom of thought and 

action: the freedom to challenge the suffocating historical dominance 

of conservative utility; the freedom to be (almost) useless. 

Chindogu are tools for everyday life. 

Chindogu are a form of nonverbal communication understandable 

to everyone, everywhere. Specialized or technical inventions, 

like a three-handled sprocket loosener for drain pipes centered 

between two under-the-sink cabinet doors (the uselessness of 

which will only be appreciated by plumbers) do not count. 

Chindogu are not for sale. 

Chindogu are not tradable commodities. If you accept money 

for one you surrender your purity. They must not even be sold 

as a joke. 

assemble his oddball ideas into a book. Though it was to 

be published in English, Papia thought a Japanese name 

would give it credibility. “I wanted it to sound like an 

ancient art,” he says. The book, 101 Unuseless Japanese 

Inventions: The Art of Chindogu, appeared in 1993. Spurred 

by healthy sales, Papia and Kawakami issued 99 

More Unuseless Japanese Inventions two years 

later. The books spawned the formation of 

Chindogu clubs around the world and led to the 

founding of the International Chindogu 

Society—the paperback of the first edition 

claims the organization “10,000 strong”— 

and turned Kawakami into a minor celebrity 

in Japan. 

After the second book’s publication, though, 

Papia and Kawakami were split over the movement’s 

philosophical direction. In the U.S., talks with David 

Letterman’s Late Show fell through, and plans for 101 

Unuseless American Inventions, never got off the ground. 

Though Papia had already begun moving on to other 

things, he was chagrined by the winnowing of interest. He 

had big plans for Chindogu, envisioning it as a participatory 

design revolution for the masses. “My goal was to get 

the word into the dictionary, like karate and karaoke and 

other Japanese words,” he says. “I wanted to see it catch 

on as an art form,” whereas Kawakami, Papia complains, 

“wanted it to just sort of be his.” Not long after the second 

book came out, Papia returned to the States, where he 

enrolled in film school and started a new life as a screenwriter. 

Meanwhile, Kawakami rode out his notoriety in 

Japan. Chindogu seemed confined to the Table 

Trash Can of history. 

Not entirely. In the classrooms of American 

design schools, the art of unuseless design is 

enjoying an unexpected revival. Josh Owen, a 

professor of industrial design at the University of 

Philadelphia, employs Chindogu as a teaching tool to force 

students to solve everyday problems with everyday materials. 

Chindogu, he says, “is the antithesis of the styledriven 

approach. Students are freed from market research, 

from ‘taste-based user scenarios.’” 

In their projects, Owen and his students adhere strictly 

to the 10 Tenets of Chindogu, laid out by Kawakami in his 

first book (see sidebar, page 49). Among these: “Chindogu 

cannot be patented or sold,” “Chindogu must exist,” 

and “Chindogu are never taboo.” Most important, 

they must be “tools for everyday life” that embody a 

“spirit of anarchy—the freedom to be almost useless.” In 

Owen’s thinking, a Chindogu is “that long-winded ‘better 

mousetrap’ that takes too many steps to produce an 

effect.” Indeed, Owen and his students carefully vet each 

50

SIS OF STYLE,” SAYS DESIGN 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 

6ix 

Humor must not be the sole reason for 

creating Chindogu. 

WATCHVIEWJACKET 

The creation of Chindogu is fundamentally a problem-solving 

activity. Humor is simply the byproduct of finding an elaborate 

or unconventional solution to a problem that may not 

have been pressing to begin with. 

7even 

Chindogu are not propaganda. 

Chindogu are innocent. They are made to be used, even though 

they cannot be used. They should not be created as a perverse or 

ironic comment on the sorry state of mankind. 

8ight 

Chindogu are never taboo 

The International Chindogu Society has established certain standards 

of social decency. Cheap sexual innuendo, humor of a 

vulgar nature, and sick or cruel jokes that debase the sanctity 

of living things are not allowed. 

Designer: Trina Lefevre 

Problem: Sleeve blocks view of watch. 

Solution: Permanent window allows 

unimpeded access. 

TIEBIB 

Designer: Jarrett Seng 

Problem: Saucy foods splatter 

fancy work clothes. 

Solution: Stealthy bib folds 

out of unassuming tie. 

More 

Chindogu, 

please. 

51

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 

Designer: Marc Caccavo 

Problem: Risk of splashes during 

plunging action. 

Solution: Allows for plunging while 

toilet lid is down. 

9ine 

10en 

Chindogu can never be patented. 

Chindogu are offerings to the rest of the world—they are not 

therefore ideas to be copyrighted, patented, collected, and 

owned. As they say in Spain, Mi Chindogu Es Tu Chindogu. 

Chindogu are without prejudice. 

CHINDOGU 

STAYDRYPLUNGER 

Chindogu must never favor one race or religion over another. 

Young and old, male and female, rich and poor—all should have 

a free and equal chance to enjoy each and every Chindogu. 

proposed Chindogu to make sure it’s 

not too useful. Some of the projects 

that made the cut include the Watch 

Window Jacket (with a section cut from the 

sleeve for reading your watch), the Table 

Trash Can (with a hole at the center for waste disposal), 

and the Carpet Remnant Carpet (created by fastening 

together scraps and samples). “The tenets,” Owen 

says, “are extremely effective in dictating a procedure for 

making an object that is really devoid of any sort of superficial 

style.” 

Owen incorporates the spirit of unuselessness into his 

own work, which often features renewed takes on common 

objects. His latest creation, the Knock-Off Lamp, sold by 

Bozart, is a bowling pin light that turns off when tipped 

over. “That’s where product design gets fun,” he 

says, “when it causes you to rethink the ordinary.” 

Don Norman, a professor of computer 

science at Northwestern University and the 

author of Design of Everyday Things, recommends 

Kawakami’s books to his students. 

“It appeals to my bizarre sense of 

humor,” Norman says. While Chindogu 

are useless, or nearly so, they hit a 

Seinfeld-esque, design-about-nothing 

nerve—think Kramer’s coffee table book as coffee table— 

highlighting the absurdity of daily life. “You can’t come up 

with these things without actually having thought about 

what people do throughout the day,” Norman says. “It 

exposes real problems, often through silly solutions.” 

A decade after the first Chindogu book appeared, it has 

become required reading among industrial designers. 

“The wonderful thing about Chindogu is you think to yourself, 

‘Well, that could work,’” Owen says. Kawakami, 

meanwhile, has produced several Japanese-language follow-ups 

to his first edition, and of late has been working 

with Hollywood producers on a live television show à la 

Iron Chef. Papia, for his part, now presides as president of 

the International Chindogu Society. He still receives submissions 

and has been collecting them for another book. 

Greatest hits thus far include Exercise Chopsticks for 

strengthening fingers and Pitstopper sponges that keep 

your armpits dry. 

The art of Chindogu perseveres, but so far the fortunes 

from our Shatter-Park have yet to materialize. The truth is 

we never got around to making it. But in a remarkable 

example of spontaneous generation, one of Owen’s students 

did. He created a broken glass-like rollout called 

the Space Saver made from a special rubber developed 

by a Hollywood props company. Faithful to 

the spirit of Chindogu, he never marketed it. 

52

shirts available at www.readymademag.com

A Chindogu must exist - Philadelphia University

You also want an ePaper? Increase the reach of your titles

Delete template?

Save as template?