Released September 16th Book “Designer’s Business Skills: How to Overcome Barriers from the 5th Year of Your Career” – Be flexible with change. What are the business skills necessary to conceive and design your own value? Concent Co., Ltd.

[Published September 16th] Book “Designer’s Business Skills: How to Overcome Barriers from the 5th Year of Your Career” — Be resilient to change. What are the business skills needed to conceive and design your own value? 【Consent Co., Ltd.】
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Concent, Inc. Press release: September 11, 2025 To Members of the Press [Released September 16th] Book “Designer’s Business Skills: How to Overcome Barriers from the 5th Year of Your Career” — Be resilient to change. What are the business skills needed to conceive and design your own value? “Introduction” will be released in advance on note, and a webinar to celebrate the publication will be held on the day of release In a rapidly changing market environment, designers are increasingly required to have the ability to envision their own value and design independently. Business skills are key to achieving this. The release of “Designer’s Business Skills: How to Overcome Barriers from the Fiveth Year of Your Career” (Shoeisha Publishing), the first book by Yu Osaki, director of CONNECT Inc. (Headquarters: Shibuya-ku, Tokyo; Representative: Atsushi Hasegawa; hereinafter “CONNECT”), is fast approaching on Tuesday, September 16, 2025. This book explores the business skills necessary for designers who proactively expand their designs into the business world and continue to present their ideas to society. It will be useful not only for designers, managers of design organizations, and human resources development personnel, but also for business people who want to hone their creativity and planning skills and apply designer thinking to their work. Image
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Summary of this press release – “Designer’s Business Skills: How to Overcome Barriers in Your Five Years of Career” by Yu Osaki, director of design firm Concent, will be released on Tuesday, September 16th. – This 328-page book compiles practical business skills and mindsets to help experienced designers apply their designs to the business world and continue to grow. – Written with the hope that this book will be useful to designers, managers of design organizations, human resource development personnel, those who want to hone their planning and proposal skills, and those who want to create better services and businesses through co-creation with designers. – Ahead of the book’s release, the book’s “Introduction” will be published on note. – On the release date, Tuesday, September 16th, a CSS commemorative Nite Seminar held online ■Features of this book Feature 1: Perspectives and methods for overcoming the “fifth-year wall” As the subtitle suggests, the business skills introduced in this book go beyond introductory topics to enable “fifth-year” designers who have gained a certain amount of experience to continue growing in the business world while leveraging their designs. While focusing on specific skills, this 328-page book introduces not only abilities and techniques, but also mindsets and attitudes such as “an objective perspective to grasp one’s position,” “a readiness to self-reflect on one’s behavior and attitude,” “a willingness to take proactive action while demonstrating one’s responsibility as a designer,” and “a keen observation of market value.” The goal is to provide you with perspectives and methods for overcoming obstacles to further growth. This book is useful not only for those who feel they’ve hit the five-year wall, but also for designers with less than five years of experience as a preparatory course, for design managers and human resources development personnel as tips for developing designers, and for business people other than designers as a way to further hone their creativity, planning, and proposal skills. 〈What you can learn from this book〉 • Moving Away From “Passive Design” To become a designer who plans and proposes things on their own, rather than waiting for requests from others, and moves organizations and businesses forward. A practical approach to shifting from a “waiting attitude” to “taking the initiative” • Redefining design as a “value-creation device” Explains how designers can contribute to profits within a business from the perspective of “profit center/cost center.” Rediscover the meaning of your work. • Develop design skills effective for management and business By relearning basic knowledge of management, marketing, branding, and other areas that cannot be achieved through design skills alone, you can immediately put what you’ve learned to use in the workplace by focusing on the connections to your work. 〈Business Skills Offered〉 Project planning / proposals / management and business understanding / value creation / request response / verbalization / negotiation / communication / sales / marketing / branding / hypothesis generation / input / risk-taking / cross-border • Designer looking to advance their career • Project Manager or Director • Creative professionals such as designers and engineers • Leaders and managers of organizations that oversee designers and engineers • Businesspeople looking to improve their planning and proposal skills • Those who wish to create excellent services and products through co-creation with designers Feature 2: A structure that allows you to read while experiencing the work world Business skills are not something that can be acquired instantly or with the simple idea that “all you need is this skill and that skill.” Rather, they are something that you acquire by reviewing your own behavior, absorbing knowledge step by step, taking action, and reflecting on it. For this reason, this book focuses on the “process of acquiring business skills” and is organized into five chapters that follow that process. It is designed to help you apply a designer’s perspective to business while gaining a hands-on work experience.
https://prcdn.freetls.fastly.net/release_image/27489/39/27489-39-7a019380ba59b313f9887a226feaa0f4-3629×2041.png 〈Table of Contents〉 Chapter 1: Finding Your Position • Seeing yourself from the business world • Profit Centers and Cost Centers • Conflict between Parties and Outsiders Chapter 2: Knowing and Connecting with Others • Collaboration and Conflict with Marketing • Customer, user, human • Branding that designs recognition • Design and Sales to Nurture Relationships • Accelerate by visualizing hypotheses Chapter 3 Move and involve yourself • Planning a Design Project • Putting your heart into your proposal • Draw into the research question • Establish equality from the initial response Chapter 4: Communicating from Your Own Perspective • Ownership of decisions • Refine your verbalization • Techniques for accepting other people’s opinions • Structure and lead the explanation • The Power of Negotiation to Enrich Connections Chapter 5: Change to Increase Value • “Input” for survival • The double-edged sword of design division of labor • Breakthrough Design Prices • Take risks to accelerate growth Feature 3: Graphic design, service design, business and organizational development, human resource development, and recruitment and evaluation system
development—practical knowledge based on more than 20 years of struggle and trial and error. Author Masaru Osaki began his career as a designer at Concent, Inc. more than 20 years ago, and has gained experience designing magazines, books, advertising and public relations media, websites, and more. Since establishing an in-house service design department in 2012, he has supported new business development and service improvement for client organizations, including corporations, educational institutions, and government agencies. In recent years, he has launched a new department and is focusing on human resource development and organizational development through design. Ten years ago, he became a director at Concent, where he has been involved in the management of a design company with approximately 250 employees, most of whom are designers, including marketing, sales, human resource development, evaluation system development, business management, branding, and mission and vision development. This book is filled with the experiences and insights of author Osaki, who has repeatedly faced struggles and gone through trial and error throughout his diverse career, supporting clients in everything from production to business, human resources, and management, while also exploring the possibilities of managing Koncent. This book combines the “Textbook for Five-Year Designers” series in the online magazine “CreatorZine” (Shoeisha) and articles on note, with extensive additions and revisions, and includes newly written manuscripts. Even for those who have previously read the series and note, this book is intended to provide new insights, help organize your thoughts, and make it easier to apply in practice. ■Author: Osaki Message from Yu Business skills for designers are becoming even more important as generative AI penetrates the design field. It’s not about design as a task, but about how to collaborate with people and organizations, inspiring those around you while creating value. How to actively contribute to forming group discussion points and hone your own answers. This book is a one-of-a-kind resource for designers to gain autonomy in their thinking and actions. I hope you’ll pick it up. [Author profile]
https://prcdn.freetls.fastly.net/release_image/27489/39/27489-39-8f0e41d2f4780d176a71125ff19258b8-482×580.jpg Yu Osaki (OSAKI Yu) Consent Co., Ltd. Director/Design
Strategist/Service Designer We provide design management support, business development support, branding support, visual communication design, etc. In 2012, we launched a service design division at Outlet and expanded it into our main business. From 2024, he will be in charge of business departments related to human resource development and organizational development through design. Member of the Board of Directors of the Human Centered Design Promotion Organization (HCD-Net), a specified non-profit organization. Advisor and lecturer at “X DESIGN ACADEMY”, a “school experience of the future” for working adults (from 2017). note：https://note.com/osakiyu ■書誌情報
https://prcdn.freetls.fastly.net/release_image/27489/39/27489-39-bd290d1e2c8ed2e7aef1d94198f306fd-1765×2591.png Book title: Designer’s Business Skills: How to overcome “walls” from the 5th year of your career Author: Osaki Yu Publisher: Shoeisha Co., Ltd. Binding/text design: Toshinobu Nagata Release date: September 16, 2025 Specifications: 46 edition, 328 pages List price: 2,200 yen (2,000 yen tax 10%) ISBN: 9784798190624
Details/reservation/purchase: Shoeisha website
(https://www.shoeisha.co.jp/book/detail/9784798190624） ■Pre-release of this book’s “Introduction” on note Prior to its release, the book’s “Introduction” was published in a note by the author, Osaki. We introduce the expectations for designers that have expanded with the changing times, why business skills are required, the evolution of Osaki’s career as a designer, and the thoughts that went into writing this book.
https://prcdn.freetls.fastly.net/release_image/27489/39/27489-39-ad88e9cc32e10806ce3068a0603ccf6d-3630×1900.png “Designer’s Business Skills” Released on September 16th. Full text of “Introduction” published｜Yu Osaki note (Release date: September 11, 2025) ■Publishing commemorative CSS Nite seminar will be held online on Tuesday, September 16 On September 16th (Tuesday), the day of the book’s release, a CSS Nite seminar “What are the business skills of a designer?” will be held online to commemorate the publication. “CSS Nite” is a seminar event whose purpose is to share useful information for web creators and improve the skills of participants. On the day of the event, Osaki will begin by asking the question, “What are business skills for a designer?” and will also talk about topics that could not be covered in the book due to space limitations. Masahiro Takano, representative of CSS Nite, will be the listener, and questions received in the chat will be addressed in real time. 〈Event Overview〉 What are the business skills of a designer? ～ Commemoration of the publication of “Designer’s Business Skills: How to Overcome Walls” from the 5th Year of Your Career
https://prcdn.freetls.fastly.net/release_image/27489/39/27489-39-76d2c4f71e571ac00ffd04e14e0f2024-1000×563.png • 開催日時：2025年9月16日（火）19:00～20:15 • 開催形式：オンライン（YouTube Live） • スピーカー：大崎 優 • 聞き手、MC（進行）：鷹野雅弘 氏 • 主催：CeeBeeDee • 共催：CSS Nite 、DTP Transit • Participation fee: • 当日の視聴のみ：無料 • Individual (with slides and archive viewing): 2,200 yen • Corporate (with slides and archive viewing): 11,000 yen • 詳細・お申し込み：https://cssnite.doorkeeper.jp/events/188754 [Inquiries regarding this release] Outlet Co., Ltd. Public
Relations/PR Yuka Iwatate, Mizuho Maeda E-mail: mktg@concentinc.jp Tel：03-5725-0115（代表） [About Outlet Co., Ltd.] Consent is a design company that works with companies and governments to support their activities, with the mission of “Opening Design, Opening Design.” We provide consistent support from strategy formulation to execution in design management, business development, marketing, branding, creative development, etc., using our service design perspective and
technology. We also widely share the knowledge of design through the operation of the Consent Design School, where anyone can learn about design. We aim to create a society where each and every consumer can acquire a design perspective and use it to solve problems. Company name: Consent Co., Ltd. Address: Prefas Ebisu Minami, 1-20-6 Ebisu Minami, Shibuya-ku, Tokyo 150-0022 Established: December 1973 Representative: Representative Director and President Atsushi Hasegawa Business content: Design management support, business development and growth support, design organization and business construction support, service design, branding support, digital media development, creative development ・ Corporate site: https://www.concentinc.jp/ ・ “Design Leadership” that leads design management:
https://www.concentinc.jp/solution/design-leadership/ ・ “Consent Design School” in a world where everyone can practice design: https://cds.concentinc.jp/