We requested Ms. Fujimoto, a professor at Kyoto City University of Arts and a board member of JIDA, to give us a lecture about the design of urban public transportation in Europe. Prof. Fujimoto has been teaching at the university since 2001, after working for TOSHIBA CORPORATION as a home appliance designer, and practiced as a freelance designer then. She talked at her early part of the lecture that her contact with the street furniture design for Japan World Exposition in 1970 motivated her to be a designer. So that her experience with the street furniture might make a part of her professional roots.
The context of the lecture consisted of the result of productive and practical field research on the public transportation design in sixteen cities of seven European countries beginning with London. She made the presentation showing many pictures of the public transportation with her experience there such as railways, LRT and shared cycles becoming popular in Europe. The presentation was very pleasant filled with many pictures and research works, and it made the audience feeling like following her experience of present European landscape design environment.
The contents attracted the audience attention most were the use and the colors of the signage for the lanes exclusive for bicycles, and the wrapping advertisement of the public transportation vehicles.
Among numbers of subjects suggested in the seminar, the following especially impressed the participants; the concern on the use of red and blue with stark contrast against European beautiful cities with history and their rich forest green background, the thoughts on right or wrong of colorful wrapping design of the advertisement covering the most part of the vehicle. It was also the lecture that stimulated and reminded a variety of views of GK Group members.

Hideko Fujimoto:
Professor at Environmental Design, Faculty of Fine Arts, Kyoto City University of Arts,
Member of the board of directors of The Japan Industrial Designers’ Association

Brief Career:
1958: Born in Osaka
1982: Joined TOSHIBA CORPORATION after graduated from Department of Craft of School of Fine Arts, Kyoto City University of Arts
1992: Established architect office F Design after joined Design Center
2001 to date: present status
2005: Received the degree of Ph.D. in arts after completed doctoral course
Specialized in landscape design, and participating in the landscape management of about twenty municipal governments centered in Kansai area.
(Osaka Prefectural Gov., Kyoto Prefectural Gov., Shiga Prefectural Gov., Kobe City, Sakai City, Suita City, Toyonaka City, Nantan City, Uji City, Nishinomiya City, and others)
Writing in 2012: Citizens’ Guide for Making Your Town Beautiful. Published by Gakugei Shuppansha