Giving a specifically Japanese identity to postmodernism, Sinya Okayama's Kazenoko (Child of the Wind) stool was the first in his series of original furniture designs that took their three-dimensional form from kanji, the Japanese written system of pictographs. Like other postmodern designers, Okayama was interested in creating a dialogue between the object and the user through the introduction of familiar symbols, here directed specifically to the Japanese audience, which can "read" the outline of the object as a graphic code and understand its literal meaning, "wind" (kaze). Kathyrn B. Hiesinger and Felice Fischer, Japanese Design: A Survey since 1950. Philadelphia Museum of Art, 1994, cat. 182, p. 160.