Tokyo Shoseki Textbooks for social studies class (for third/fourth graders, sixth graders, junior high school politics/societal studies, and junior high school history) (2004)

Client: Tokyo Shoseki Co., Ltd.

In 2000, Tokyo Shoseki contacted Takahashi about a project to improve the standards of Japanese textbooks, and commissioned her to design some of them. She requested that she be involved from the earliest stages of the five-year textbook-making process, in which designers are generally involved only the last two years or so. Her desire was to be there from the planning stage so that she could build a closer relationship between the design and the content, based on more "three-dimensional thinking".

In response, Tokyo Shoseki allowed Takahashi to be present at planning meetings, which was unprecedented, and they worked together very closely, over a long period of time.

Tokyo Shoseki boasts the largest market share of social studies textbooks in Japan, and the largest circulation of books in the world (as most Japanese people have numerous textbooks). Takahashi was commissioned with the design for all pages of the third/fourth graders' social studies textbook volume 1, and the first chapters of the junior high school political/societal studies and history books. She herself appeared in volume 2 of the sixth graders' social studies textbook in the section related to human rights, to explain about the work of designers and the ties between design and society, and she authored the text for the section as well. It was the first time "designer" was listed as a profession in a Japanese textbook.

The textbook began to be used in 2005 at schools across Japan. Takahashi also wrote an article entitled "Everything Is Connected" for related printed materials for elementary school teachers.

Related page
> Writings