A new exhibition - Japanese Design Today 100 - shoots a glance at the achievements, past and present, of the country's design leaders. The exhibition is both well-timed and at a good home in the Kawasaki Art Museum.

The museum itself is well designed and has an interesting mandate - to document, and educate the public on, examples of mass-produced popular culture - whether it be posters, manga, cartoon, video, film or photos. "Japanese Design Today 100" includes examples of top designers but aims to go beyond a simple "Who's Who" of Japanese design.

The curatorial team, some of whom are renowned designers themselves, have tried to select a range of items that illustrate the impact and importance of design on different areas of Japanese life - including the workplace, the home and the public sector.

The first few items on display are from the post-war years and are intended to give a brief background to the development of Japanese design. These center on vehicles and electronic and domestic goods - including an elegantly simple Toshiba rice cooker from 1955 (a common sight in many Japanese households) and a 1960 round-screen portable TV from Sony. The Museum's curator, Masafumi Fukagawa, points out Mori Masahiro's playful "Fancy Cups" of 1969 as an example of "modern design with a Japanese taste." These handleless cups have a range of different textures acting as grips for the user, and although they have a vaguely Italian feel to them, they could work well in a Japanese kitchen (probably because they made are in pure white). The Honda Super Cub motorbike from1958 has a wonderful retro feel, its frame in two graduated tones of blue. The model is still in production today, its design virtually unchanged - a good yardstick for superior design and one of the points that determined the choice of the older exhibits. Other examples of products from that era still being made today range from the classic curved shape of Kikkoman's soy sauce bottle (1961) to Sori Yanagi's beloved Butterfly Stool of 1956.

The majority of the designs from this period are attributed simply to the company of manufacture with few notable exceptions - the case of Yanagi, above, or Isamu Noguchi, represented here with his trademark "Akari" lamps made from Japanese paper. Evidently this was before the rise of the "star" designers we are familiar with today, represented here by the in-demand Sato Kashiwa and his snappy designs for the CD from the year 2000 for the pop idols SMAP. In this design he did away with any photos of the band and instead based the design on the play of strong primary colors uniting the cover and other parts of the CD package.

Some designs address the demands of typical Japanese environments - lack of space and a need to be versatile. The "Table=Chest" by the design team Azumi can be folded for use as a table or stacked up vertically like a chest of drawers, and the multi-purpose flat surfaces of the "Sumitsubo" low table can be spun around and arranged according to the shape of the room or the situation at hand. The "Warp Pillow" is a high-tech "zabuton" with a hole around the edge to allow it to be hung on the wall when not in use (or alternatively for use holding drinks or ashtrays).

A number of designs directly address social needs, such as the shower designed for old and infirm people. Water spurts straight from the wall-mounted appliance, alleviating the need for the user to hold a showerhead in their unsteady hand. There are also other examples of how particular situations and needs have inspired innovations in design. After the Hanshin earthquake, cardboard proved to be the material of choice for strong but cheap and convenient stretchers for helping in emergency situations.

Concerns of trouble from "hooligans" at the time of the World Cup inspired transparent riot shields to protect the police. Not only does the transparency allow officers to see the situation clearly, but compared to solidly colored shields it reduces the psychological distance between the two sides, hopefully reducing conflict.

Designs such as this remind us of the importance of design in everyday life, and Fukagawa says he hopes the exhibition "mirrors modern Japanese society." Although far from exhaustive, "Japanese Design Today 100" certainly does that.